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Fifty Years In Chains; or, The Life of an American Slave: Electronic Edition.Ball, CharlesText scanned (OCR) byTeresa Church Text encoded byJordan Davis and Natalia SmithFirst edition, 1997.ca. 700KAcademic Affairs Library, UNC-CHUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1997.

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Call number E444 .B184 (Wilson Annex, UNC-CH)Fifty Years In Chains; or, The Life of an American SlaveBall, CharlesNew YorkH. Dayton, Publisher;Indianapolis, Ind.,Dayton & Asher,1859

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FIFTY YEARS IN CHAINS;OR,
THE LIFE OF ANAMERICAN SLAVE.“My God! Can such things be! Hast Thou not said that whatsoe'er is done Unto thy weakest and thy humblest one,Is even done to Thee?” - WHITTIER.NEW-YORKH. DAYTON, PUBLISHER.36 HOWARD STREET.INDIANAPOLIS, IND.: - ASHER & COMPANY.1859.Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1858, by
H. DAYTON,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Southern District of New York.
PREFACE.

THE story which follows is true in every particular
Responsible citizens of a neighboring State can vouch
for the reality of the narrative. The language of the
slave has not at all times been strictly adhered to, as
a half century of bondage unfitted him for literary work
The subject of the story is still a slave by the laws of this
country, and it would not be wise to reveal his name.

FIFTY YEARS IN CHAINS
or,THE LIFE OF AN AMERICAN SLAVE.
CHAPTER I.
SEPARATED FROM MY MOTHER.

My story is a true one, and I shall tell it in a simple
style. It will be merely a recital of my life as a
slave in the Southern States of the Union - a description
of negro slavery in the “model Republic.”

My grandfather was brought from Africa and sold
as a slave in Calvert county, in Maryland. I never
understood the name of the ship in which he was
imported, nor the name of the planter who bought him
on his arrival, but at the time I knew him he was a
slave in a family called Maud, who resided near
Leonardtown. My father was a slave in a family
named Hauty, living near the same place. My mother
was the slave of a tobacco planter, who died when
I was about four years old. My mother had several
children, and they were sold upon master's death to
separate purchasers. She was sold, my father told
me, to a Georgia trader. I, of all her children, was
the only one left in Maryland. When sold I was
naked, never having had on clothes in my life, but my
new master gave me a child's frock, belonging to one
of his own children. After he had purchased me, he
dressed me in this garment, took me before him on
his horse, and started home; but my poor mother,
when she saw me leaving her for the last time, ran
after me, took me down from the horse, clasped me in
her arms, and wept loudly and bitterly over me. My
master seemed to pity her; and endeavored to soothe
her distress by telling her that he would be a good
master to me, and that I should not want anything.
She then, still holding me in her arms, walked along
the road beside the horse as he moved slowly, and
earnestly and imploringly besought my master to buy
her and the rest of her children, and not permit them
to be carried away by the negro buyers; but whilst
thus entreating him to save her and her family, the
slave-driver, who had first bought her, came running
in pursuit of her with a raw-hide in his hand. When
he overtook us, he told her he was her master now,
and ordered her to give that little negro to its owner,
and come back with him.

My mother then turned to him and cried, “Oh, master,
do not take me from my child!” Without making
any reply, he gave her two or three heavy blows
on the shoulders with his raw-hide, snatched me from
her arms, handed me to my master, and seizing her
by one arm, dragged her back towards the place of
sale. My master then quickened the pace of his horse;
and as we advanced, the cries of my poor parent became
more and more indistinct - at length they died
away in the distance, and I never again heard the
voice of my poor mother. Young as I was, the horrors
of that day sank deeply into my heart, and even
at this time, though half a century has elapsed, the
terrors of the scene return with painful vividness upon
my memory. Frightened at the sight of the cruelties
inflicted upon my poor mother, I forgot my own sorrows
at parting from her and clung to my new master,
as an angel and a saviour, when compared with the
hardened fiend into whose power she had fallen. She
had been a kind and good mother to me; had warmed
me in her bosom in the cold nights of winter; and
had often divided the scanty pittance of food allowed
her by her mistress, between my brothers, and sisters,
and me, and gone supperless to bed herself. Whatever
victuals she could obtain beyond the coarse food,
salt fish and corn bread, allowed to slaves on the Patuxent
and Potomac rivers, she carefully, distributed
among her children, and treated us with all the tenderness
which her own miserable condition would permit.
I have no doubt that she was chained and
driven to Carolina, and toiled out the residue of a
forlorn and famished existence in the rice swamps,
or indigo fields of the South.

My father never recovered from the effects of the
shock, which this sudden and overwhelming ruin of
his family gave him. He had formerly been of a gay,
social temper, and when he came to see us on a Saturday
night, he always brought us some little present,
such as the means of a poor slave would allow -
apples, melons, sweet potatoes, or, if he could procure
nothing else, a little parched corn, which tasted better
in our cabin, because he had brought it.

He spent the greater part of the time, which his
master permitted him to pass with us, in relating such
stories as he had learned from his companions, or in
singing the rude songs common amongst the slaves of
Maryland and Virginia. After this time I never heard
him laugh heartily, or sing a song. He became gloomy
and morose in his temper, to all but me; and spent
nearly all his leisure time with my grandfather, who
claimed kindred with some royal family in Africa, and
had been a great warrior in his native country. The
master of my father was a hard, penurious man, and
so exceedingly avaricious, that he scarcely allowed
himself the common conveniences of life. A stranger
to sensibility, he was incapable of tracing the change
in the temper and deportment of my father, to its
true cause; but attributed it to a sullen discontent
with his condition as a slave, and a desire to abandon
his service, and seek his liberty by escaping to some
of the free States. To prevent the perpetration of
this suspected crime of running away from slavery,
the old man resolved to sell my father to a southern
slave-dealer, and accordingly applied to one of those
men, who was at that time in Calvert, to become the
purchaser. The price was agreed on, but, as my father
was a very strong active, and resolute man, it was
deemed unsafe for the Georgian to attempt to seize
him, even with the aid of others, in the day-time,
when he was at work, as it was known he carried
upon his person a large knife. It was therefore determined
to secure him by stratagem, and for this purpose,
a farmer in the neighborhood, who was made
privy to the plan, alleged that he had lost a pig,
which must have been stolen by some one, and that
he suspected my father to be the thief. A constable
was employed to arrest him, but as he was afraid to
undertake the business alone, he called on his way, at
the house of the master of my grandfather, to procure
assistance from the overseer of the plantation. When
he arrived at the house, the overseer was at the barn,
and thither he repaired to make his application. At
the end of the barn was the coach-house, and as the
day was cool, to avoid the wind which was high, the
two walked to the side of the coach-house to talk over
the matter, and settle their plan of operations. It so
happened that my grandfather, whose business it was
to keep the coach in good condition, was at work at
this time, rubbing the plated handles of the doors, and
brightening the other metallic parts of the vehicle.
Hearing the voice of the overseer without, he suspended
his work, and listening attentively, became a party
to their councils. They agreed that they would delay
the execution of their project until the next day, as it
was then late. They supposed they would have no
difficulty in apprehending their intended victim, as,
knowing himself innocent of the theft, he would
readily consent to go with the constable to a justice
of the peace, to have the charge examined. That
night, however, about midnight, my grandfather
silently repaired to the cabin of my father, a distance
of about three miles, aroused him from his sleep,
made him acquainted with the extent of his danger,
gave him a bottle of cider and a small bag of parched
corn, and then enjoined him to fly from the destination
which awaited him. In the morning the Georgian
could not find his newly purchased slave, who was
never seen or heard of in Maryland from that day.

After the flight of my father, my grandfather was
the only person left in Maryland with whom I could
claim kindred. He was an old man, nearly eighty
years old, he said, and he manifested all the fondness
for me that I could expect from one so old. He was
feeble, and his master required but little work from
him. He always expressed contempt for his fellow-slaves,
for when young, he was an African of rank in
his native land. He had a small cabin of his own,
with half an acre of ground attached to it, which he
cultivated on his own account, and from which he
drew a large share of his sustenance. He had singular
religious notions - never going to meeting or caring
for the preachers he could, if he would, occasionally
hear. He retained his native traditions respecting the
Deity and hereafter. It is not strange that he believed
the religion of his oppressors to be the invention of
designing men, for the text oftenest quoted in his
hearing was, “Servants, be obedient to your masters.”

The name of the man who purchased me at the
vendue, and became my master, was John Cox; but
he was generally called Jack Cox. He was a man of
kindly feelings towards his family, and treated his
slaves, of whom he had several besides me, with
humanity. He permitted my grandfather to visit me as
often as he pleased, and allowed him sometimes to
carry me to his own cabin, which stood in a lonely
place, at the head of a deep hollow, almost surrounded
by a thicket of cedar trees, which had grown up in
a worn out and abandoned tobacco field. My master
gave me better clothes than the little slaves of my
age generally received in Calvert, and often told me
that he intended to make me his waiter, and that if I
behaved well I should become his overseer in time.
These stations of waiter and overseer appeared to me
to be the highest points of honor and greatness in the
whole world, and had not circumstances frustrated my
master's plans, as well as my own views, I should
probably have been living at this time in a cabin on
the corner of some tobacco plantation.

Fortune had decreed otherwise. When I was about
twelve years old, my master, Jack Cox, died of a
disease which had long confined him to the house. I
was sorry for the death of my master, who had always
been kind to me; and I soon discovered that I had
good cause to regret his departure from this world.
He had several children at the time of his death, who
were all young; the oldest being about my own age.
The father of my late master, who was still living,
became administrator of his estate, and took possession
of his property, and amongst the rest, of myself.
This old gentleman treated me with the greatest
severity, and compelled me to work very hard on his
plantation for several years, until I suppose I must
have been near or quite twenty years of age. As I
was always very obedient, and ready to execute all
his orders, I did not receive much whipping, but
suffered greatly for want of sufficient and proper food.
My master allowed his slaves a peck of corn, each, per
week, throughout the year; and this we had to grind
into meal in a hand-mill for ourselves. We had a
tolerable supply of meat for a short time, about the
month of December, when he killed his hogs. After
that season we had meat once a week, unless bacon
became scarce, which very often happened, in which
case we had no meat at all. However, as we fortunately
lived near both the Patuxent river and the
Chesapeake Bay, we had abundance of fish in the
spring, and as long as the fishing season continued.
After that period, each slave received, in addition to
his allowance of corn, one salt herring every day.

My master gave me one pair of shoes, one pair of
stockings, one hat, one jacket of coarse cloth, two
coarse shirts, and two pair of trowsers, yearly. He
allowed me no other clothes. In the winter time I
often suffered very much from the cold; as I had to
drive the team of oxen which hauled the tobacco to
market, and frequently did not get home until late at
night, the distance being considerable, and my cattle
traveled very slow.

One Saturday evening, when I came home from the
corn field, my master told me that he had hired me
out for a year at the city of Washington, and that I
would have to live at the Navy Yard.

On the New Year's day following, which happened
about two weeks afterwards, my master set forward
for Washington, on horseback, and ordered me to
accompany him on foot. It was night when we arrived
at the Navy Yard, and everything appeared very
strange to me.

I was told by a gentleman who had epaulets on his
shoulders, that I must go on board a large ship, which
lay in the river. He at the same time told a boy to
show me the way. This ship proved to be a frigate,
and I was told that I had been brought there to cook
for the people belonging to her. In the course of a
few days the duties of my station became quite familiar
to me; and in the enjoyment of a profusion of
excellent provisions, I felt very happy. I strove by
all means to please the officers and gentlemen who
came on board, and in this I soon found my account.
One gave me a half-worn coat, another an old shirt,
and a third, a cast off waistcoat and pantaloons.
Some presented me with small sums of money, and
in this way I soon found myself well clothed, and with
more than a dollar in my pocket. My duties, though
constant, were not burthersome, and I was permitted
to spend Sunday afternoon in my own way. I generally
went up into the city to see the new and splendid
buildings; often walked as far as Georgetown, and
made many new acquaintances among the slaves, and
frequently saw large numbers of people of my color
chained together in long trains, and driven off towards
the South. At that time the slave-trade was not regarded
with so much indignation and disgust, as it is
now. It was a rare thing to hear of a person of color
running away, and escaping altogether from his master:
my father being the only one within my knowledge,
who had, before this time, obtained his liberty
in this manner, in Calvert county; and, as before
stated, I never heard what became of him after his
flight.

I remained on board the frigate, and about the Navy
Yard, two years, and was quite satisfied with my lot,
until about three months before the expiration of this
period, when it so happened that a schooner, loaded
with iron and other materials for the use of the yard,
arrived from Philadelphia. She came and lay close
by the frigate, to discharge her cargo, and amongst
her crew I observed a black man, with whom, in the
course of a day or two, I became acquainted. He
told me he was free, and lived in Philadelphia, where
he kept a house of entertainment for sailors, which, he
said, was attended to in his absence by his wife.

His description of Philadelphia, and of the liberty
enjoyed there by the black people, so charmed my
imagination that I determined to devise some plan of
escaping from the frigate, and making my way to the
North. I communicated my designs to my new friend,
who promised to give me his aid. We agreed that
the night before the schooner should sail, I was to be
concealed in the hold, amongst a parcel of loose
tobacco, which, he said, the captain had undertaken
to carry to Philadelphia. The sailing of the schooner
was delayed longer than we expected; and, finally,
her captain purchased a cargo of flour in Georgetown,
and sailed for the West Indies. Whilst I was anxiously
awaiting some other opportunity of making my
way to Philadelphia, (the idea of crossing the country
to the western part of Pennsylvania, never entered my
mind,) New Year's day came, and with it came my
old master from Calvert, accompanied by a gentleman
named Gibson, to whom, he said, he had sold me, and
to whom he delivered me over in the Navy Yard.
We all three set out that same evening for Calvert,
and reached the residence of my new master the next
day. Here, I was informed, that I had become the
subject of a law-suit. My new master claimed me
under his purchase from old Mr. Cox; and another
gentleman of the neighborhood, named Levin Ballard,
had bought me of the children of my former master,
Jack Cox This suit continued in the course of Calvert
county more than two years; but was finally decided
in favor of him who had bought me of the
children.

I went home with my master, Mr. Gibson, who was
a farmer, and with whom I lived three years. Soon
after I came to live with Mr. Gibson, I married a girl
of color named Judah, the slave of a gentleman by
the name of Symmes, who resided in the same
neighborhood. I was at the house of Mr. Symmes every
week; and became as well acquainted with him and
his family, as I was with my master.

Mr. Symmes also married a wife about the time I
did. The lady whom he married lived near Philadelphia,
and when she first came to Maryland, she refused
to be served by a black chambermaid, but employed
a while girl, the daughter of a poor man, who
lived near. The lady was reported to be very wealthy,
and brought a large trunk full of plate and other
valuable articles. This trunk was so heavy that I
could scarcely carry it, and it impressed my mind
with the idea of great riches in the owner, at that
time. After some time Mrs. Symmes dismissed her
white chambermaid and placed my wife in that situation,
which I regarded as a fortunate circumstance, as
it insured her good food, and at least one good suit
of clothes.

The Symmes' family was one of the most ancient
in Maryland, and had been a long time resident in
Calvert county. The grounds had been laid out, and
all the improvements projected about the family abode,
in a style of much magnificence, according to the
custom of the old aristocrary of Maryland and Virginia.

Appendant to the domicile, and at no great distance
from the house, was a family vault, built of brick, in
which reposed the occupants of the estate, who had
lived there for many previous generations. This
vault had not been opened or entered for fifteen years
previous to the time of which I speak; but it so happened,
that at this period, a young man, a distant
relation of the family, died, having, requested on his
death-bed, that he might be buried in this family
resting place. When I came on Saturday evening to
see my wife and child, Mr. Symmes desired me, as I
was older than any of his black men, to take an iron
pick and go and open the vault, which I accordingly
did, by cutting away the mortar, and removing a few
bricks from one side of the building; but I could not
remove more than three or four bricks before I was
obliged, by the horrid effluvia which issued at the
aperture, to retire. It was the most deadly and sickening
scent that I have ever smelled, and I could not
return to complete the work until after the sun had
risen the next day, when I pulled down so much of
one of the side walls, as to permit persons to walk in
upright. I then went in alone, and examined this
house of the dead, and surely no picture could more
strongly and vividly depict the emptiness of all earthly
vanity, and the nothingness of human pride. Dispersed
over the floor lay the fragments of more than
twenty human skeletons, each in the place where it
had been deposited by the idle tenderness of surviving
friends. In some cases nothing remained but the hair
and the larger bones, whilst in several the form of the
coffin was yet visible, with all the bones resting in
their proper places. One coffin, the sides of which
were yet standing; the lid only having decayed and
partly fallen in, so as to disclose the contents of this
narrow cell, presented a peculiarly moving spectacle.
Upon the centre of the lid was a large silver plate, and
the head and foot were adorned with silver stars. -
The nails which had united the parts of the coffin had
also silver heads. Within lay the skeletons of a mother
and her infant child, in slumbers only to be
broken by the peal of the last trumpet. The bones
of the infant lay upon the breast of the mother,
where the hands of affection had shrouded them. The ribs
of the parent had fallen down, and rested on the back
bone. Many gold rings were about the bones of the
fingers. Brilliant ear-rings lay beneath where the ears
had been; and a glittering gold chain encircled the
ghastly and haggard vetebrae of a once beautiful neck.
The shroud and flesh had disappeared, but the hair of
the mother appeared strong and fresh. Even the
silken locks of the infant were still preserved. Behold
the end of youth and beauty, and of all that is lovely
in life! The coffin was so much decayed that it
could not be removed. A thick and dismal vapor
hung embodied from the roof and walls of this charnal
house, in appearance somewhat like a mass of dark
cobwebs; but which was impalpable to the touch, and
when stirred by the hand vanished away. On the
second day we deposited with his kindred, the corpse
of the young man, and at night I again carefully
closed up the breach which I had made in the walls
of this dwelling-place of the dead.

CHAPTER II

SOME short time after my wife became chambermaid
to her mistress, it was my misfortune to change masters
once more. Levin Ballard, who, as before stated,
had purchased me of the children of my former master,
Jack Cox, was successful in his law suit with Mr.
Gibson, the object of which was to determine the
right of property in me; and one day, whilst I was at
work in the corn-field, Mr. Ballard came and told me
I was his property; asking me at the same time if I
was willing to go with him. I told him I was not
willing to go; but that if I belonged to him I knew
I must. We then went to the house, and Mr. Gibson
not being at home, Mrs. Gibson told me I must go
with Mr. Ballard.

I accordingly went with him, determining to serve
him obediently and faithfully. I remained in his service
almost three years, and as he lived near the residence
of my wife's master, my former mode of life
was not materially changed, by this change of home.

Mrs. Symmes spent much of her time in exchanging
visits with the families of the other large planters,
both in Calvert and the neighboring counties; and
through my wife, I became acquainted with the private
family history of many of the principal persons
in Maryland.

There was a great proprietor, who resided in another
county, who owned several hundred slaves; and who
permitted them to beg of travelers on the high-way.
This same gentleman had several daughters, and
according to the custom of the time, kept what they
called open house: that is, his house was free to all
persons of genteel appearance, who chose to visit it.
The young ladies were supposed to be the greatest
fortunes in the country, were reputed beautiful, and
consequently were greatly admired.

Two gentlemen, who were lovers of these girls,
desirous of amusing their mistresses, invited a young
man, whose standing in society they supposed to be
beneath theirs, to go with them to the manor, as it
was called. When there, they endeavored to make
him an object of ridicule, in presence of the ladies;
but he so well acquitted himself, and manifested such
superior wit and talents, that one of the young ladies
fell in love with him, and soon after wrote him a letter,
which led to their marriage. His two pretended
friends were never afterwards countenanced by the
family, as gentlemen of honor; but the fortunate
husband avenged himself of his heartless companions,
by inviting them to his wedding, and exposing them
to the observation of the vast assemblage of fashionable
people, who always attended a marriage, in the
family of a great planter.

The two gentlemen, who had been thus made to
fall into the pit that they had dug for another, were
so much chagrined at the issue of the adventure, that
one soon left Maryland; and the other became a common
drunkard, and died a few years afterwards.

My change of masters realized all the evil
apprehensions which I had entertained. I found Mr.
Ballard sullen and crabbed in his temper, and always
prone to find fault with my conduct - no matter how
hard I had labored, or how careful I was to fulfil all
his orders, and obey his most unreasonable commands.
Yet, it so happened, that he never beat me, for which,
I was altogether indebted to the good character, for
industry, sobriety and humility, which I had established
in the neighborhood. I think he was ashamed
to abuse me, lest he should suffer in the good opinion
of the public; for he often fell into the most violent
fits of anger against me, and overwhelmed me with
coarse and abusive language. He did not give me
clothes enough to keep me warm in winter, and compelled
me to work in the woods, when there was deep
snow on the ground, by which I suffered very much.
I had determined at last to speak to him to sell me to
some person in the neighborhood, so that I might still
be near my wife and children - but a different fate
awaited me.

My master kept a store at a small village on the
bank of the Patuxent river, called B-, although
he resided at some distance on a farm. One morning
he rose early, and ordered me to take a yoke of oxen
and go to the village, to bring home a cart which was
there, saying he would follow me. He arrived at the
village soon after I did, and took his breakfast with
his store-keeper. He then told me to come into the
house and get my breakfast. Whilst I was eating in
the kitchen, I observed him talking earnestly, but
low, to a stranger near the kitchen door. I soon after
went out, and hitched my oxen to the cart, and was
about to drive off, when several men came round about
me, and amongst them the stranger whom I had seen
speaking with my master. This man came up to me,
and, seizing me by the collar, shook me violently, saying
I was his property, and must go with him to
Georgia. At the sound of these words, the thoughts
of my wife and children rushed across my mind, and
my heart beat away within me. I saw and knew that
my case was hopeless, and that resistance was vain,
as there were near twenty persons present, all of whom
were ready to assist the man by whom I was kidnapped.
I felt incapable of weeping or speaking, and in
my despair I laughed loudly. My purchaser ordered
me to cross my hands behind, which were quickly
bound with a strong cord; and he then told me that
we must set out that very day for the South. I asked
if I could not be allowed to go to see my wife and
children, or if this could not be permitted, if they
might not have leave to come to see me; but was
told that I would be able to get another wife in
Georgia.

My new master, whose name I did not hear, took
me that same day across the Patuxent, where I joined
fifty-one other slaves, whom he had bought in Maryland.
Thirty-two of these were men, and nineteen
were women. The women were merely tied together
with a rope, about the size of a bed-cord, which was
tied like a halter round the neck of each; but the
men, of whom I was the stoutest and strongest, were
very differently caparisoned. A strong iron collar
was closely fitted by means of a padlock round each
of our necks. A chain of iron, about a hundred feet
in length, was passed through the hasp of each padlock,
except at the two ends, where the hasps of the
padlock passed through a link of the chain. In addition
to this, we were handcuffed in pairs, with iron
staples and bolts, with a short chain, about a foot
long, uniting the handcuffs and their wearers in pairs.
In this manner we were chained alternately by the
right and left hand; and the poor man to whom I
was thus ironed, wept like an infant when the blacksmith,
with his heavy hammer, fastened the ends of
the bolts that kept the staples from slipping from our
arms. For my own part, I felt indifferent to my fate.
It appeared to me that the worst had come that could
come, and that no change of fortune could harm me.

After we were all chained and handcuffed together,
we sat down upon the ground; and here reflecting
upon the sad reverse of fortune that had so suddenly
overtaken me, I became weary of life, and bitterly
execrated the day I was born. It seemed that I was
destined by fate to drink the cup of sorrow to the
very dregs, and that I should find no respite from
misery but in the grave. I longed to die, and escape
from the hands of my tormentors; but even the
wretched privilege of destroying myself was denied
me, for I could not shake off my chains, nor move a
yard without the consent of my master. Reflecting
in silence upon my forlorn condition, I at length concluded
that as things could not become worse - and
as the life of man is but a continued round of changes,
they must, of necessity, take a turn in my favor at
some future day. I found relief in this vague and
indefinite hope, and when we received orders to go on
board the scow, which was to transport us over the
Patuxent, I marched down to the water with a firmness
of purpose of which I did not believe myself capable,
a few minutes before.

We were soon on the south side of the river, and
taking up our line of march, we traveled about five
miles that evening, and stopped for the night at one
of those miserable public houses, so frequent in the
lower parts of Maryland and Virginia, called “ordinaries.”

Our master ordered a pot of mush to be made for
our supper; after despatching which we all lay down
on the naked floor to sleep in our handcuffs and chains.
The women, my fellow-slaves, lay on one side of the
room; and the men who were chained with me, occupied
the other. I slept but little this night, which I
passed in thinking of my wife and little children,
whom I could not hope ever to see again. I also
thought of my grandfather, and of the long nights I
had passed with him, listening to his narratives of the
scenes through which he had passed in Africa. I at
length fell asleep, but was distressed by painful dreams.
My wife and children appeared to be weeping and
lamenting my calamity; and beseeching and imploring
my master on their knees, not to carry me away
from them. My little boy came and begged me not
to go and leave him, and endeavored, as I thought,
with his little hands to break the fetters that bound
me. I awoke in agony and cursed my existence. I
could not pray, for the measure of my woes seemed to
be full, and I felt as if there was no mercy in heaven,
nor compassion on earth, for a man who was born a
slave. Day at length came, and with the dawn, we
resumed our journey towards the Potomac. As we
passed along the road, I saw the slaves at work in the
corn and tobacco fields. I knew they toiled hard and
lacked food; but they were not, like me, dragged in
chains from their wives, children and friends. Compared
with me, they were the happiest of mortals. I
almost envied them their blessed lot.

Before night we crossed the Potomac, at Hoe's
Ferry, and bade farewell to Maryland. At night we
stopped at the house of a poor gentleman, at least he
appeared to wish my master to consider him a gentleman;
and he had no difficulty in establishing his
claim to poverty. He lived at the side of the road, in
a framed house, which had never been plastered within -
the weather-boards being the only wall. He had
about fifty acres of land enclosed by a fence, the remains
of a farm which had once covered two or three
hundred acres; but the cedar bushes had encroached
upon all sides, until the cultivation had been confined
to its present limits. The land was the picture of
sterility, and there was neither barn nor stable on the
place. The owner was ragged, and his wife and
children were in a similar plight. It was with difficulty
that we obtained a bushel of corn, which our master
ordered us to parch at a fire made in the yard, and to
eat for our supper. Even this miserable family possessed
two slaves, half-starved, half-naked wretches,
whose appearance bespoke them familiar with hunger,
and victims of the lash; but yet there was one pang
which they had not known - they had not been chained
and driven from their parents or children, into hopeless
exile.

We left this place early in the morning, and directed
our course toward the south-west; our master
riding beside us, and hastening our march, sometimes
by words of encouragement, and sometimes by threats
of punishment. The women took their place in the
rear of our line. We halted about nine o'clock for
breakfast and received as much corn-bread as we
could eat, together with a plate of boiled herrings, and
about three pounds of pork amongst us. Before we
left this place, I was removed from near the middle of
the chain, and placed at the front end of it; so that
I now became the leader of the file, and held this post
of honor until our irons were taken from us, near the
town of Columbia in South Carolina. We continued
our route this day along, the high road between the
Potomac and Rappahannock; and I saw each of those
rivers several times before night. Our master gave us
no dinner to-day, but we halted and got as much
corn-mush and sour milk as we could eat for supper.
The weather grew mild and pleasant, and we needed
no more fires at night.

From this time we all slept promiscuously, men and
women on the doors of such houses as we chanced to
stop at. We passed on through Bowling Green, a
quiet village.

Time did not reconcile me to my chains, but it made
me familiar with them. I reflected on my desperate
situation with, a degree of calmness, hoping that I
might be able to devise some means of escape. My
master placed a particular value upon me, for I heard
him tell a tavern-keeper that if he had me in Georgia
he could get eight hundred dollars for me, but he had
bought me for his brother, and believed he should not
sell me; he afterwards changed his mind, however.
I carefully examined every part of our chain, but found
no place where it could be separated.

We all had as much corn-bread as we could eat,
procured of our owner at the places we stopped at for
the night. In addition to this we usually had a salt
herring every day. On Sunday we had a quarter of a
pound of bacon each.

We continued our course up the country westward
for a few days and then turned South, crossed James
river above Richmond, as I heard at the time. After
more than four weeks of travel we entered South Carolina
near Camden, and for the first time I saw a field
of cotton in bloom.

As we approached the Yadkin river the tobacco
disappeared from the fields and the cotton plant took
its place as an article of general culture.

I was now a slave in South Carolina, and had no
hope of ever again seeing my wife and children. I
had at times serious thoughts of suicide so great was
my anguish. If I could have got a rope I should
have hanged myself at Lancaster. The thought of
my wife and children I had been torn from in Maryland,
and the dreadful undefined future which was
before me, came near driving me mad. It was long
after midnight before I fell asleep, but the most pleasant
dream, succeeded to these sorrowful forebodings.
I thought I had escaped my master, and through
great difficulties made my way back to Maryland, and
was again in my wife's cabin with my little children
on my lap. Every object was so vividly impressed on
my mind in this dream, that when I awoke, a firm
conviction settled upon my mind, that by some means,
at present incomprehensible to me, I should yet again
embrace my wife, and caress my children in their
humble dwelling. Early in the morning, our master
called us up and distributed to each of the party a
cake made of corn-meal and a small piece of bacon.
On our journey, we had only eaten twice a day, and
had not received breakfast until about nine o'clock;
but he said this morning meal was given to welcome
us to South Carolina. He then addressed us all, and
told us we might now give up all hope of ever returning
to the places of our nativity; as it would be impossible
for us to pass through the States of North
Carolina and Virginia, without being taken up and
sent back. He further advised us to make ourselves
contented, as he would take us to Georgia, a far better
country than any we had seen; and where we
would be able to live in the greatest abundance.
About sunrise we took up our march on the road to
Columbia, as we were told. Hitherto our master had
not offered to sell any of us, and had even refused to
stop to talk to any one on the subject of our sale, although
he had several times been addressed on this
point, before we reached Lancaster; but soon after
we departed from this village, we were overtaken on
the road by a man on horseback, who accosted our
driver by asking him if his niggars were for sale.
The latter replied, that he believed he would not sell
any yet, as he was on his way to Georgia, and cotton
being now much in demand, he expected to obtain
high prices for us from persons who were going to
settle in the new purchase. He, however, contrary to
his custom, ordered us to stop, and told the stranger
he might look at us, and that he would find us as fine
a lot of hands as were ever imported into the country
- that we were all prime property, and he had no
doubt would command his own prices in Georgia.

The stranger, who was a thin, weather-beaten,
sunburned figure, then said, he wanted a couple of breeding
wenches, and would give as much for them as they
would bring in Georgia - that he had lately heard
from Augusta, and that niggers were not higher there
than in Columbia, and, as he had been in Columbia
the week before, he knew what niggers were worth.
He then walked along our line, as we stood chained
together, and looked at the whole of us - then turning
to the women; asked the prices of the two pregnant
ones. Our master replied, that these were two of the
best breeding-wenches in all Maryland - that one was
twenty-two, and the other only nineteen - that the
first was already the mother of seven children, and
the other of four - that he had himself seen the children
at the time he bought their mothers - and that
such wenches would be cheap at a thousand dollars
each; but as they were not able to keep up with the
gang, he would take twelve hundred dollars for the
two. The purchaser said this was too much, but that
he would give nine hundred dollars for the pair. This
price was promptly refused; but our master, after
some consideration, said he was willing to sell a bargain
in these wenches, and would take eleven hundred
dollars for them, which was objected to on the other
side; and many faults and failings were pointed out
in the merchandise. After much bargaining, and many
gross jests on the part of the stranger, he offered a
thousand dollars for the two, and said he would give
no more. He then mounted his horse, and moved
off; but after he had gone about one hundred yards,
he was called back; and our master said, if he would
go with him to the next blacksmith's shop on the
road to Columbia, and pay for taking the irons off
the rest of us, he might have the two women.

This proposal was agreed to, and as it was now
about nine o'clock, we were ordered to hasten on to
the next house, where, we were told, we must stop
for breakfast. At this place we were informed that it
was ten miles to the next smith's shop, and our new
acquaintance was obliged by the terms of his contract,
to accompany us thither. We received for breakfast,
about a pint of boiled rice to each person, and after
this was despatched, we again took to the road, eager
to reach the blacksmith's shop, at which we expected
to be relieved of the iron rings and chains, which had
so long galled and worried us. About two o'clock we
arrived at the longed-for residence of the smith; but,
on inquiry, our master was informed that he was not
at home, and would not return before evening. Here
a controversy arose, whether we should all remain here
until the smith returned, or the stranger should go on
with us to the next smithery, which was said to be
only five miles distant. This was a point not easily
settled between two such spirits as our master and the
stranger; both of whom had been overseers in their
time, and both of whom had risen to the rank of proprietors
of slaves.

The matter had already produced angry words, and
much vaunting on the part of the stranger; - “that a
freeman of South Carolina was not to be imposed upon;
that by the constitution of the State, his rights
were sacred, and he was not to be deprived of his
liberty, at the arbitrary will of a man just from amongst
the Yankees, and who had brought with him to the
South as many Yankee tricks as he had niggers, and
he believed many more.” He then swore, that “all
the niggers in the drove were Yankee niggers.”

“When I overseed for Colonel Polk,” said he, “on
his rice plantation, he had two Yankee niggers that
he brought from Maryland, and they were running
away every day. I gave them a hundred lashes more
than a dozen times; but they never quit running
away, till I chained them together, with iron collars
round their necks, and chained them to spades, and
made them do nothing but dig ditches to drain the
rice swamps. They could not run away then, unless
they went together, and carried their chains and spades
with them. I kept them in this way two years, and
better niggers I never had. One of them died one
night, and the other was never good for anything after
he lost his mate. He never ran away afterwards, but
he died too, after a while.” He then addressed himself
to the two women, whose master he had become,
and told them that if ever they ran away, he would treat
them in the same way. Wretched as I was myself,
my heart bled for these poor creatures, who had fallen
into the hands of a tiger in human form. The dispute
between the two masters was still raging, when,
unexpectedly, the blacksmith rode up to his house, on a
thin, bony-looking horse, and dismounting, asked his
wife what these gentlemen were making such a frolick about. I did not hear her answer, but both the disputants
turned and addressed themselves to the smith
- the one to know what price he would demand to
take the irons off all these niggers, and the other to
know how long it would take him to perform the
work. It is here proper for me to observe, that there
are many phrases of language in common use in Carolina
and Georgia, which are applied in a way that
would not be understood by persons from one of the
Northern States. For instance, when several persons
are quarrelling, brawling, making a great noise, or
even fighting, they say, “the gentlemen are frolicking!”
I heard many other terms equally strange,
whilst I resided in the southern country, amongst such
white people as I became acquainted with; though
my acquaintance was confined, in a great measure, to
overseers, and such people as did not associate with
the rich planters and great families.

The smith at length agreed to take the irons from
the whole of us for two dollars and fifty cents, and
immediately set about it, with the air of indifference
that he would have manifested in tearing a pair of old
shoes from the hoofs of a wagon-horse. It was four
weeks and five days, from the time my irons had been
riveted upon me, until they were removed, and great
as had been my sufferings whilst chained to my fellow-slaves,
I cannot say that I felt any pleasure in being
released from my long confinement; for I knew that
my liberation was only preparatory to my final, and,
as I feared, perpetual subjugation to the power of
some such monster, as the one then before me, who
was preparing to drive away the two unfortunate women
whom he had purchased, and whose life's-blood
he had acquired the power of shedding at pleasure,
for the sum of a thousand dollars. After we were
released from our chains, our master sold the whole
lot of irons, which we had borne from Maryland, to
the blacksmith, for seven dollars.

The smith then procured a bottle of rum, and
treated his two new acquaintances to a part of its
contents - wishing them both good luck with their
niggers. After these civilities were over, the two women
were ordered to follow their new master, who
shaped his course across the country, by a road leading
westwest. At parting from us, they both wept
aloud, and wrung their hands in despair. We all
went to them, and bade them a last farewell. Their
road led into a wood, which they soon entered, and I
never saw them nor heard of them again.

These women had both been driven from Calvert
county, as well as myself, and the fate of the younger
of the two, was peculiarly severe.

She had been brought up as a waiting-maid of a
young lady, the daughter of a gentleman, whose wife
and family often visited the mistress of my own wife.
I had frequently seen this woman when she was a
young girl, in attendance upon her young mistress,
and riding in the same carriage with her. The father
of the young lady died, and soon after she married a
gentleman who resided a few miles off. The husband
received a considerable fortune with his bride, and
amongst other things, her waiting-maid, who was reputed
a great beauty among people of color. He had
been addicted to the fashionable sports of the country,
before marriage, such as horse-racing, fox-hunting,
&c., and I had heard the black people say he drank
too freely; but it was supposed that he would correct
all these irregularities after marriage, more especially
as his wife was a great belle, and withal very
handsome. The reverse, however, turned out to be
the fact. Instead of growing better, he became worse;
and in the course of a few years, was known all over
the country, as a drunkard and a gambler. His wife,
it was said, died of grief, and soon after her death, his
effects were seized by his creditors, and sold by the
sheriff. The former waiting-maid, now the mother
of several children, was purchased by our present master
for four hundred dollars, at the sheriff's sale, and
this poor wretch, whose employment in early life had
been to take care of her young mistress, and attend
to her in her chamber, and at her toilet, after being
torn from her husband and her children, had now gone
to toil out a horrible existence beneath the scorching
sun of a South Carolina cotton-field under the dominion
of a master, as void of the manners of a gentleman,
as he was of the language of humanity.

It was now late in the afternoon; but, as we had
made little progress to-day, and were now divested of
the burden of our chains, as well as freed from the
two women, who had hitherto much retarded our
march, our master ordered us to hasten on our way,
as we had ten m les to go that evening. I had
been so long oppressed by the weight of my chains,
and the iron collar about my neck, that for some time
after I commenced walking at my natural liberty, I
felt a kind of giddiness, or lightness of the head
Most of my companions complained of the same
sensation, and we did not recover our proper feelings
until after we had slept one night. It was after dark
when we arrived at our lodging-place, which proved
to be the house of a small cotton-planter, who, it
appeared, kept a sort of a house of entertainment for
travelers, contrary to what I afterwards discovered to
be the usual custom of cotton-planters. This man
and my master had known each other before, and
seemed to be well acquainted. He was the first person
that we had met since leaving Maryland, who
was known to my master, and as they kept up a very
free conversation, through the course of the evening,
and the house in which they were, was only separated
from the kitchen, in which we were lodged, by a space
of a few feet, I had an opportunity of hearing much
that was highly interesting to me. The landlord,
after supper, came with our master to look at us, and
to see us receive our allowance of boiled rice from the
hands of a couple of black women, who had prepared
it in a large iron kettle. Whilst viewing us, the
former asked the latter, what he intended to do with
his drove; but no reply was made to this inquiry -
and as our master had, through our whole journey,
maintained a studied silence on this subject, I felt a
great curiosity to know what disposition he intended
to make of the whole gang, and of myself in particular.
On their return to the house, I advanced to a
small window in the kitchen, which brought me within
a few yards of the place where they sat, and from
which I was able to hear all they said, although they
spoke in a low tone of voice. I here learned, that so
many of us as could be sold for a good price, were to
be disposed of in Columbia, on our arrival at that
place, and that the residue would be driven to Augusta
and sold there.

The landlord assured my master that at this time
slaves were much in demand, both in Columbia and
Augusta; that purchasers were numerous and prices
good; and that the best plan of effecting good sales
would be to put up each nigger separately, at auction,
after giving a few days' notice, by an advertisement,
in the neighboring country. Cotton, he said, had not
been higher for many years, and as a great many persons,
especially young men, were moving off to the
new purchase in Georgia, prime hands were in high
demand, for the purpose of clearing the land in the
new country - that the boys and girls, under twenty,
would bring almost any price at present, in Columbia
for the purpose of picking the growing crop of cotton,
which promised to be very heavy; and as most persons
had planted more than their hands would be able
to pick, young niggers, who would soon learn to pick
cotton, were prime articles in the market. As to
those more advanced in life, he seemed to think the
prospect of selling them at an unusual price, not so
good, as they could not so readily become expert
cotton-pickers - he said further, that for some cause,
which he could not comprehend, the price of rice had
not been so good this year as usual; and that he had
found it cheaper to purchase rice to feed his own
niggers than to provide them with corn, which had to
be brought from the upper country. He therefore
advised my master not to drive us towards the rice
plantation of the low country. My master said he
would follow his advice, at least so far as to sell a
portion of us in Carolina, but seemed to be of opinion
that his prime hands would bring him more money in
Georgia, and named me, in particular, as one who
would be worth, at least, a thousand dollars, to a
man who was about making a settlement, and
clearing a plantation in the new purchase. I therefore
concluded, that in the course of events, I was likely to
become the property of a Georgian, which turned out
in the end to be the case, though not so soon as I at
this time apprehended. I slept but little this night,
feeling a restlessness when no longer in chains; and
pondering over the future lot of my life, which appeared
fraught only with evil and misfortune. Day at
length dawned and with its first light we were ordered
to betake ourselves to the road, which, we were told,
would lead us to Columbia, the place of intended sale
of some, if not all of us. For several days past, I had
observed that in the country through which we traveled,
little attention was paid to the cultivation of anything
but cotton. Now this plant was almost the sole
possessor of the fields. It covered the plantations
adjacent to the road, as far as I could see, both before
and behind me, and looked not unlike buckwheat before
it blossoms. I saw some small fields of corn, and
lots of sweet potatoes, amongst which the young vines
of the water-melon were frequently visible. The
improvements on the plantations were not good. There
were no barns, but only stables and sheds, to put the
cotton under, as it was brought from the field. Hay
seemed to be unknown in the country, for I saw neither
hay-stacks nor meadows; and the few fields that were
lying fallow, had but small numbers of cattle in them,
and these were thin and meagre. We had met with
no flocks of sheep of late, and the hogs that we saw
on the road-side were in bad condition. The horses
and mules that I saw in the cotton-fields, were poor
and badly harnessed, and the half-naked condition of
the negroes, who drove them, or followed with the
hoe, together with their wan complexions, proved to
me that they had too much work, or not enough food.
We passed a cotton-gin this morning, the first that I
ever saw; but they were not at work with it. We
also met a party of ladies and gentlemen on a journey
of pleasure, riding in two handsome carriages,
drawn by sleek and spirited horses, very different in
appearance from the moving skeletons that I had
noticed drawing the ploughs in the fields. The black
drivers of the coaches were neatly clad in gay-colored
clothes, and contrasted well with their half-naked brethren,
a gang of whom were hoeing cotton by the roadside,
near them, attended by an overseer in a white
linen shirt and pantaloons, with one of the long
negro whips in his hand.

I observed that these poor people did not raise their
heads, to look at either the fine coaches and horses
then passing, or at us; but kept their faces steadily
bent towards the cotton-plants, from among which
they were removing weeds. I almost shuddered
at the sight, knowing that I myself was doomed to a
state of servitude equally cruel and debasing, unless,
by some unforseen occurrence, I might fall into the
hands of a master of less inhumanity of temper than
the one who had possession of the miserable creatures
before me.

CHAPTER III.

IT was manifest that I was now in a country where
the life of a black man was no more regarded than
that of an ox, except as far as the man was worth the
more money in the market. On all the plantations
that we passed, there was a want of live stock of every
description, except slaves, and they were deplorably
abundant.

The fields were destitute of everything that deserved
the name of grass, and not a spear of clover
was anywhere visible. The few cattle that existed,
were browsing on the boughs of the trees, in the woods.
Everything betrayed a scarcity of the means of supplying
the slaves, who cultivated the vast cotton-fields,
with a sufficiency of food. We traveled this
day more than thirty miles, and crossed the Catawba
river in the afternoon, on the bottoms of which I saw,
for the first time, fields of rice, growing in swamps
covered with water. Causeways were raised through
the low-lands in which the rice grew, and on which
the road was formed on which we traveled. These
rice-fields, or rather swamps, had, in my eyes, a beautiful
appearance. The rice was nearly two feet in
height above the water, and of a vivid green color,
covering a large space, of at least a hundred acres.
Had it not been for the water, which appeared stagnant
and sickly, and swarmed with frogs and thousands
of snakes, it would have been as fine a sight as
one need wish to look upon. After leaving the low
grounds along the river, we again entered plantations
of cotton, which lined the roads on both sides, relieved,
here and there, by corn-fields and potato-patches.
We stopped for the night at a small tavern, and our
master said we were within a day's journey of Columbia.

We here, again, received boiled rice for supper,
without salt, or any kind of seasoning; a pint was
allotted to each person, which we greedily devoured,
having had no dinner to-day, save an allowance of
corn-cakes, with the fat of about five pounds of bacon,
extracted by frying, in which we dipped our bread. I
slept soundly after this day's march, the fatigues of
the body having, for once, overcome the agitations of
the mind. The next day, which was, if my recollection
is accurate, the ninth of June, was the last of our
journey before our company separated; and we were
on the road before the stars had disappeared from the
sky. Our breakfast, this morning, consisted of bacon
soup, a dish composed of corn-meal, boiled in water,
with a small piece of bacon to give the soup a taste
of meat. For dinner we had boiled Indian peas, with
a small allowance of bacon. This was the first time
that we had received two rations of meat in the same
day, on the whole journey, and some of our party
were much surprised at the kindness of our master;
but I had no doubt that his object was to make us
look fat and hearty, to enable him to obtain better
prices for us at Columbia.

At supper this night, we had corn mush, in large
wooden trays, with melted lard to dip the mush in
before eating it. We might have reached Columbia
this day if we had continued our march, but we stopped,
at least an hour before sun-set, about three miles
from town, at the house of a man who supported the
double character of planter and keeper of a house of
entertainment; for I learned from his slaves that
their master considered it disreputable to be called a
tavern-keeper, and would not put up a sign, although
he received pay of such persons as lodged with him.
His house was a frame building, weather-boarded with
pine boards, but had no plastering within. The furniture
corresponded with the house which contained
it, and was both scanty and mean, consisting of pine
tables and wooden chairs, with bottoms made of cornhusks
The house was only one story high, and all
the rooms, six or seven in number, parlor, bed-rooms,
and kitchen, were on the first floor. As the weather
was warm and the windows open, I had an opportunity
of looking into the sleeping rooms of the family,
as I walked round the house, which I was permitted
freely to do. The beds and their furniture answered
well to the chairs and tables; yet in the large front
room I observed on an old fashioned side-board, a
great quantity of glass-ware, of various descriptions,
with two or three dozen silver spoons, a silver tea-urn,
and several knives and forks with silver handles. In
the corner of this room stood a bed with gaudy red
curtains, with figures of lions, elephants, naked negroes,
and other representations of African scenery.

The master of the house was not at home when we
arrived, but came in from the field shortly afterwards.
He met my master with the cordiality of an old friend,
though he had never seen him before; said he was
happy to see him at his house, and that the greatest
pleasure he enjoyed was derived from the entertainment
of such gentlemen as thought proper to visit
his house; that he was always glad to see strangers,
and more especially gentlemen who were adding so
much to the wealth and population of Carolina, as
those merchants who imported servants from the
North. He then observed that he had never seen a
finer lot of property pass his house than we were, and
that any gentleman who brought such a stock of hands
into the country was a public benefactor, and entitled
to the respect and gratitude of every friend of the
South. He assured my master that he was happy to
see him at his house, and that if he thought proper to
remain a few days with him, it would be his chief
business to introduce him to the gentlemen of the
neighborhood, who would all be glad to become
acquainted with a merchant of his respectability. In
the State of Maryland, my master had been called a
negro buyer, or Georgia trader, sometimes a negro
driver; but here, I found that he was elevated to the
rank of merchant, and a merchant of the first order
too; for it was very clear that in the opinion of the
landlord, no branch of trade was more honorable than
the traffic in us poor slaves. Our master observed
that he had a mind to remain here a short time, and
try what kind of market Columbia would present, for
the sale of his lot of servants; and that he would
make his house his home, until he had ascertained
what could be done in town, and what demand there
was in the neighborhood for servants. We were not
called slaves by these men, who talked of selling us,
and of the price we would bring, with as little compunction
of conscience as they would have talked of
the sale of so many mules.

It is the custom throughout all the slave-holding
States, amongst people of fashion, never to speak of
their negroes as slaves, but always as servants; but
I had never before met with the keeper of a public
house, in the country, who had arrived at this degree
of refinement. I had been accustomed to hear this
order of men, and indeed the greater number of white
people speak of the people of color as niggers.

We remained at this place more than two weeks;
I presume because my master found it cheaper to keep
us here than in town, or perhaps, because he supposed
we might recover from the hardships of our journey
more speedily in the country.

As it was here that my real acquaintance with
South Carolina commenced, I have noted with more
particularity the incidents that occurred, than I otherwise
should have done. This family was composed
of the husband, wife, three daughters, all young women,
and two sons, one of whom appeared to be about
twenty, and the other, perhaps seventeen years old.
They had nine slaves in all, one very old man, quite
crooked with years and labor - two men of middle age
- one lad, perhaps sixteen - one woman with three
children, the oldest about seven, - and a young girl
of twelve or fourteen. The farm, or plantation, they
lived on, contained about one hundred and fifty
acres of cleared land, sandy, and the greater part of
it poor, as was proved by the stinted growth of the
cotton.

At the time of our arrival at this house, I saw no
persons about it, except the four ladies - the mother
and her three daughters - the husband being in the
field, as noticed above. According to the orders of
my master, I had taken the saddle from his horse and
put him in a stable; and it was not until after the
first salutations of the new landlord to my master
were over, that he seemed to think of asking him
whether he had come on foot, on horse-back, or in a
coach. He at length, however, turned suddenly and
asked him, with an air of surprise, where he had left
his horses and carriage. My master said he had no
carriage, that he traveled on horse-back, and that his
horse was in the stable. The landlord then apologized
for the trouble he must have had, in having his
horse put away himself; and said that at this season
of the year, the planters were so hurried by their crops,
and found so much difficulty in keeping down the
grass, that they were generally obliged to keep all
their servants in the field; that for his part, he had
been compelled to put his coachman, and even the
waiting-maids of his daughters into the cotton-fields,
and that at this time, his family were without servants,
a circumstance that had never happened before!
“For my part,” said he, “I have always prided myself
on bringing up my family well, and can say, that
although I do not live in so fine a house as some of
the other planters of Carolina, yet my children are as
great ladies and gentlemen as any in the state. Not
one of them has ever had to do a day's work yet, and
as long as I live, never shall. I sent two of my daughters
to Charleston last summer, and they were there
three months; and I intend to send the youngest there
this summer. They have all learned to dance here in
Columbia, where I sent them two quarters to a Frenchman,
and he made me pay pretty well for it. They
went to the same dancing school with the daughters
of Wade Hampton and Colonel Fitzhugh. I am determined
that they shall never marry any but gentlemen
of the first character, and I know they will always
follow my advice in matters of this kind. They are
prudent and sensible girls, and are not going to do as
Major Pollack's daughter did this spring, who ran away
with a Georgia cracker, who brought a drove of cattle
for sale from the Indian country, and who had not a
nigger in the world. He staid with me sometime,
and wished to have something to say to my second
daughter, but the thing would not do.”

Here he stopped short in his narrative, and seeming
to muse a moment, said to his guest, “I presume, as
you travel alone, you have no family.” “No,” replied
my master, “I am a single man.” “I thought
so by your appearance,” said the loquacious landlord,
“and I shall be glad to introduce you to my family
this evening. My sons are two as fine fellows as there
are in all Carolina. My oldest boy is lieutenant in
the militia, and in the same company that marched
with Gen. Marion in the war. He was on the point
of fighting a duel last winter, with young M'Corkle in
Columbia; but the matter was settled between them.
You will see him this evening, when he returns from
the quoit-party. A quoit-party of young bucks meet
once every week about two miles from this, and as I
wish my sons to keep the best company, they both attend
it. There is to be a cock-fight there this afternoon,
and my youngest son, Edmund, has the finest
cock in this country. He is one of the true game
blood, - the real Dominica game breed; and I sent to
Charleston for his gaffs. There is a bet of ten dollars
a side between my son's cock and the one belonging
to young Blainey, the son of Major Blainey. Young
Blainey is a hot-headed young blood, and has been
concerned in three duels, though I believe he never
fought but one; but I know Edmund will not take a
word from him, and it will be well if he and his cock
do not both get well licked.”

Here the conversation was arrested by the sound of
horses' feet on the road, and in the next instant, two
young men rode up at a gallop, mounted on lean looking
horses; one of the riders carrying a pole on his
shoulder, with a game cock in a net bag, tied to one
end of it. On perceiving them the landlord exclaimed
with an oath, “There's two lads of spirit! stranger -
and if you will allow me the liberty of asking you
your name, I will introduce you to them.” At the
suggestion of his name, my master seemed to hesitate
a little, but after a moment's pause, said, “They call
me M'Giffin, sir.” “My name is Hulig, sir,” replied
the landlord, “and I am very happy to be acquainted
with you, Mr. M'Giffin,” at the same time shaking him
by the hand, and introducing his two sons, who were
by this time at the door.

This was the first time I had ever heard the name
of my master, although I had been with him five
weeks. I had never seen him before the day on which
he seized and bound me in Maryland, and as he took
me away immediately, I did not hear his name at the
time. The people who assisted to fetter me, either
from accident or design, omitted to name him, and
after we commenced our journey, he had maintained
so much distant reserve and austerity of manner towards
us all, that no one ventured to ask him his
name. We had called him nothing but “master,”
and the various persons at whose houses we had stopped
on our way, knew as little of his name as we did.
We had frequently been asked the name of our master,
and perhaps had not always obtained credence, when
we said we did not know it.

Throughout the whole journey, until after we were
released from our irons, he had forbidden us to converse
together beyond a few words in relation to our
temporary condition and wants; and as he was with
us all day, and never slept out of hearing of us at
night, he rigidly enforced his edict of silence. I presume
that the reason of this prohibition of all conversation
was to prevent us from devising plans of escape;
but he had imposed as rigid a silence on himself
as was enforced upon us; and after having passed
from Maryland to South Carolina, in his company, I
knew no more of my master, than, that he knew how
to keep his secrets, guard his slaves, and make a close
bargain. I had never heard him speak of his home or
family; and therefore had concluded that he was an
unmarried man, and an adventurer, who felt no more
attachment for one place than another, and whose
residence was not very well settled; but, from the
large sums of money which he must have been able to
command and carry with him to the North, to enable
him to purchase so large a number of slaves, I had no
doubt that he was a man of consequence and consideration
in the place from whence he came.

In Maryland, I had always observed that men, who
were the owners of large stocks of negroes, were not
averse to having publicity given to their names; and
that the possession of this species of property even
there, gave its owner more vanity and egotism, than
fell to the lot of the holders of any other kind of
estate; and in truth, my subsequent experience proved
that without the possession of slaves, no man could
ever arrive at, or hope to rise to any honorable station
in society; - yet, my master seemed to take no pride
in having at his disposal the lives of so many human
beings. He never spoke to us in words of either pity
or hatred; and never spoke of us, except to order us
to be fed or watered, as he would have directed the
same offices to be performed for so many horses, or to
inquire where the best prices could be obtained for us.
He regarded us only as objects of traffic and the materials
of his commerce; and although he had lived
several years in Carolina and Georgia, and had there
exercised the profession of an overseer, he regarded
the Southern planters as no less the subjects of trade
and speculation than the slaves he sold to them; as
will appear in the sequel. It was to this man that
the landlord introduced his two sons, and upon whom
he was endeavoring to impose a belief, that he was
the head of a family which took rank with those of
the first planters of the district. The ladies of the
household, though I had seen them in the kitchen
when I walked round the house, had not yet presented
themselves to my master, nor indeed were they in
a condition to be seen anywhere but in the apartment
they occupied at the time. The young gentlemen gave a
very gasconading account of the quoit-party and cockfight,
from which they had just returned, and according
to their version of the affair, it might have been
an assemblage of at least half the military officers of
the state; for all the persons of whom they spoke,
were captains, majors and colonels. The eldest said,
he had won two bowls of punch at quoits; and the
youngest, whose cock had been victor in the battle, on
which ten dollars were staked, vaunted much of the
qualities of his bird; and supported his veracity by
numerous oaths, and reiterated appeals to his brother
for the truth of his assertions. Both these young
men were so much intoxicated that they with difficulty
maintained an erect posture in walking.

By this time the sun was going down, and I observed
two female slaves, a woman and girl, approaching
the house on the side of the kitchen from the cotton-field.
They were coming home to prepare supper
for the family; the ladies whom I had seen in the
kitchen not having been there for the purpose of
performing the duties appropriate to that station, but
having sought it as a place of refuge from the sight of
my master, who had approached the front of their
dwelling silently, and so suddenly as not to permit
them to gain the foot of the stairway in the large
front room, without being seen by him, to whose view
they by no means wished to expose themselves before
they had visited their toilets. About dark the supper
was ready in the large room, and, as it had two fronts,
one of which looked into the yard where my companions
and I had been permitted to seat ourselves, and
had an opportunity of seeing, by the light of the candle,
all that was done within, and of hearing all that
was said. The ladies, four in number, had entered
the room before the gentlemen; and when the latter
came in my master was introduced, by the landlord to
his wife and daughters, by the name and title of
Colonel M'Giffin, which, at that time, impressed me
with a belief that he was really an officer, and that he
had disclosed this circumstance without my knowledge;
but I afterwards perceived that in the south it is deemed
respectful to address a stranger by the title of
Colonel, or Major, or General, if his appearance will
warrant the association of so high a rank with his name.
My master had declared his intention of becoming the
inmate of this family for some time, and no pains
seemed to be spared on their part to impress upon his
mind the high opinion that they entertained of the
dignity of the owner of fifty slaves; the possession of
so large a number of human creatures being, in Carolina,
a certificate of character, which entitles its bearer
to enter whatever society he may choose to select, with
out any thing more being known of his birth, his life
or reputation. The man who owns fifty servants must
needs be a gentleman amongst the higher ranks, and
the owner of half a hundred niggers is a sort of nobleman
amongst the low, the ignorant, and the vulgar.
The mother and three daughters, whose appearance,
when I saw them in the kitchen, would have warranted
the conclusion that they had just risen from bed without
having time to adjust their dress, were now gaily,
if not neatly attired; and the two female slaves, who
had come from the field at sundown to cook the supper,
now waited at the table. The landlord talked
much of his crops, his plantation and slaves, and of
the distinguished families who exchanged visits with
his own; but my master took very little part in the
conversation of the evening, and appeared disposed to
maintain the air of mystery which had hitherto invested
his character.

After it was quite dark, the slaves came in from the
cotton-field, and taking little notice of us, went into
the kitchen, and each taking thence a pint of corn,
proceeded to a little mill, which was nailed to a post
in the yard, and there commenced the operation of
grinding meal for their suppers, which were afterwards
to be prepared by baking the meal into cakes at the
fire. The woman who was the mother of the three
small children, was permitted to grind her allowance of
corn first, and after her came the old man, and the
others in succession. After the corn was converted
into meal, each one kneaded it up with cold water into
a thick dough, and raking away the ashes from a small
space on the kitchen hearth, placed the dough, rolled
up in green leaves, in the hollow, and covering it with
hot embers, left it to be baked into bread, which was
done in about half an hour. These loaves constituted
the only supper of the slaves belonging to this family
for I observed that the two women who had waited at
the table, after the supper of the white people was
disposed of, also came with their corn to the mill on the
post and ground their allowance like the others. They
had not been permitted to taste even the fragments of
the meal that they had cooked for their masters and
mistresses. It was eleven o'clock before these people
had finished their supper of cakes, and several of them,
especially the younger of the two lads, were so overpowered
with toil and sleep, that they had to be roused
from their slumbers when their cakes were done, to
devour them.

We had for our supper to-night, a pint of boiled
rice to each person, and a small quantity of stale
and very rancid butter, from the bottom of an old keg, or
firkin, which contained about two pounds, the remnant
of that which once filled it. We boiled the rice ourselves,
in a large iron kettle; and, as our master now
informed us that we were to remain here some time,
many of us determined to avail ourselves of this season
of respite from our toils, to wash our clothes, and
free our persons from the vermin which had appeared
amongst our party several weeks before, and now
begun to be extremely tormenting. As we were not
allowed any soap, we were obliged to resort to the use
of a very fine and unctuous kind of clay, resembling
fullers' earth, but of a yellow color, which was found
on the margin of a small swamp near the house. This
was the first time that I had ever heard of clay being
used for the purpose of washing clothes; but I often
availed myself of this resource afterwards, whilst I was
a slave in the south. We wet our clothes, then rubbed
this clay all over the garments, and by scouring
it out in warm water with our hands, the cloth, whether
of woollen, or cotton, or linen texture, was entirely
clean. We subjected our persons to the same process,
and in this way freed our camp from the host of enemies
that had been generated in the course of our journey.

This washing consumed the whole of the first day
of our residence on the plantation of Mr. Hulig.
We all lay the first night in a shed, or summer kitchen,
standing behind the house, and a few yards from it a
place in which the slaves of the plantation washed
their clothes, and passed their Sundays in warm weather,
when they did not work; but as this place was
quite too small to accommodate our party, or indeed
to contain us, without crowding us together in such a
manner as to endanger our health, we were removed,
the morning after our arrival, to an old decayed frame
building, about one hundred yards from the house,
which had been erected, as I learned, for a cotton-gin,
but into which its possessor, for want of means I presume,
had never introduced the machinery of the gin.
This building was near forty feet square; was without
any other floor than the earth, and neither doors nor
windows, to close the openings which had been left for
the admission of those who entered it. We were told
that in this place the cotton of the plantation was deposited
in the picking season, as it was brought from
the field, until it could be removed to a neighboring
plantation, where there was a gin to divest it of its
seeds.

Here we took our temporary abode - men and
women, promiscuously. Our provisions, whilst we
remained here, were regularly distributed to us; and
our daily allowance to each person, consisted of a pint
of corn, a pint of rice, and about three or four pounds
of butter, such as we had received on the night of our
arrival, divided amongst us, in small pieces from the
point of a table knife. The rice we boiled in the iron
kettle - we ground our corn at the little mill on the
post in the kitchen, and converted the meal into bread,
in the manner we had been accustomed to at home -
sometimes on the hearth, and sometimes before the fire
on a hoe. The butter was given us as an extraordinary
ration, to strengthen and recruit us after our long
march, and give us a healthy and expert appearance
at the time of our future sale.

We had no beds of any kind to sleep on, but each
one was provided with a blanket, which had been the
companion of our travels. We were left entirely at
liberty to go out or in when we pleased, and no watch
was kept over us either by night or day.

Our master had removed us so far from our native
country, that he supposed it impossible for any of us
ever to escape from him, and surmount all the obstacles
that lay between us and our former homes. He went
away immediately after we were established in our new
lodgings, and remained absent until the second evening
about sundown, when he returned, came into our
shed, sat down on a block of wood in the midst of us,
and asked if any one had been sick; if we had got our
clothes clean; and if we had been supplied with an
allowance of rice, corn and butter. After satisfying
himself upon these points, he told us that we were
now at liberty to run away if we chose to do so; but
if we made the attempt we should most certainly be
re-taken, and subjected to the most terrible punishment
“I never flog,” said he, “my practice is to
cat-haul; and if you run away, and I catch you
again - as I surely shall do - and give you one cat-hauling,
you will never run away again, nor attempt
it.” I did not then understand the import of cat-hauling,
but in after times, became well acquainted
with its signification.

We remained in this place nearly two weeks, during
which time, our allowance of food was not varied, and
was regularly given to us. We were not required to
do any work; and I had liberty and leisure to walk
about the plantation, and make such observations as I
could upon the new state of things around me. Gentlemen
and ladies came every day to look at us, with
a view of becoming our purchasers; and we were examined
with minute care as to our ages, former occupations,
and capacity of performing labor. Our persons
were inspected, and more especially the hands were
scrutinized, to see if all the fingers were perfect, and
capable of the quick motions necessary in picking cotton.
Our master only visited us once a day, and
sometimes he remained absent two days; so that he
seldom met any of those who came to see us; but,
whenever it so happened that he did meet them, he
laid aside his silence and became very talkative, and
even animated in his conversation, extolling our good
qualities, and averring that he had purchased some of
us of one colonel, and others of another general in
Virginia; that he could by no means have procured us,
had it not been that, in some instances, our masters
had ruined themselves, and were obliged to sell us to
save their families from ruin; and in others, that our
owners were dead, their estates deeply in debt, and we
had been sold at public sale; by which means he had
become possessed of us. He said our habits were
unexceptionable, our characters good; that there was not
one among us all who had ever been known to run away,
or steal any thing from our former masters. I observed
that running away, and stealing from his master, were
regarded as the highest crimes of which a slave could
be guilty; but I heard no questions asked concerning
our propensity to steal from other people besides our
masters, and I afterwards learned, that this was not
always regarded as a very high crime by the owner of
a slave, provided he would perpetrate the theft so
adroitly as not to be detected in it.

We were severally asked by our visitors, if we would
be willing to live with them, if they would purchase
us, to which we generally replied in the affirmative;
but our owner declined all the offers that were made
for us, upon the ground that we were too poor
- looked too bad to be sold at present - and that in
our condition he could not expect to get a fair value
for us.

One evening, when our master was with us, a thin,
sallow-looking man rode up to the house, and alighting
from his horse, came to us, and told him that he
had come to buy a boy; that he wished to get a good
field hand, and would pay a good price for him. I
never saw a human countenance that expressed more
of the evil passions of the of the heart than did that of this
man, and his conversation corresponded with his
physiognomy. Every sentence of his language was
accompanied with an oath of the most vulgar profanity,
and his eyes appeared to me to be the index of a soul
as cruel as his visage was disgusting and repulsive.

After looking at us for some time, this wretch singled
me out as the object of his choice, and coming
up to me, asked me how I would like him for a master.
In my heart I detested him; but a slave is often
afraid to speak the truth, and divulge all he feels; so
with myself in this instance, as it was doubtful whether
I might not fall into his hands, and be subject to the
violence of his temper, I told him that if he was a
good master, as every gentleman ought to be, I should
be willing to live with him. He appeared satisfied
with my answer, and turning to my master, said he
would give a high price for me. “I can,” said he,
“by going to Charleston, buy as many Guinea negroes
as I please for two hundred dollars each, but as I like
this fellow, I will give you four hundred for him.”
This offer struck terror into my heart, for I knew it
was as much as was generally given for the best and
ablest slaves, and I expected that it would immediately
be accepted as my price, and that I should be
at once consigned to the hands of this man, of whom
I had formed so abhorrent an opinion. To my surprise
and satisfaction. However, my master made no
reply to the proposition; but stood for a moment, with
one hand raised to his face and his fore-finger on his
nose, and then turning suddenly to me, said, “Go into
the house; I shall not sell you to-day.” It was my
business to obey the order of departure, and as I went
beyond the sound of their voices, I could not understand
the purport of the conversation which followed
between these two traffickers in human blood; but
after a parley of about a quarter of an hour, the
hated stranger started abruptly away, and going to
the road, mounted his horse, and rode off at a gallop,
banishing himself and my fears together.

I did not see my master again this evening, and
when I came out of our barracks in the morning, although
it was scarcely daylight, I saw him standing
near one corner of the building, with his head inclined
towards the wall, evidently listening to catch any
sounds within. He ordered me to go and feed his
horse, and have him saddled for him by sunrise.
About an hour afterwards he came to the stable in his
riding dress; and told me that he should remove us
all to Columbia in a few days. He then rode away,
and did not return until the third day afterwards.

CHAPTER IV.

IT was now about the middle of June, the weather
excessively warm, and from eleven o'clock. A. M., until
late in the afternoon, the sand about our residence
was so hot that we could not stand on it with our
bare feet in one posture, more than one or two minutes.
The whole country, so far as I could see, appeared
to be dead plain, without the least variety of
either hill or dale. The pine was so far the predominant
timber of the forest, that at a little distance
the entire woods appeared to be composed of this tree.

I had become weary of being confined to the immediate
vicinity of our lodgings, and determined to venture
out into the fields of the plantation, and see the
manner of cultivating cotton. Accordingly, after I
had made my morning meal upon corn cakes, I sallied
out in the direction which I had seen the slaves of the
plantation take at the time they left the house at daylight,
and following a path through a small field of
corn, which was so tall as to prevent me from seeing
beyond it, I soon arrived at the field in which the people
were at work with hoes amongst the cotton, which
was about two feet high, and had formed such
long branches, that they could no longer plough
in it without breaking it. Expecting to pass the
remainder of my life in this kind of labor, I felt anxious
to know the evils, if any, attending it, and more especially
the manner in which the slaves were treated on
the cotton estates.

The people now before me, were all diligently and
laboriously weeding and hilling the cotton with hoes,
and when I approached them, they scarcely took time
to speak to me, but continued their labor as if I had
not been present. As there did not appear to be any
overseer with them, I thought I would go amongst
them, and enter into conversation with them; but
upon addressing myself to one of the men, and telling
him, if it was not disagreeable to him, I should be
glad to become acquainted with him, he said he should
be glad to be acquainted with me, but master Tom
did not allow him to talk much to people when he
was at work. I asked him where his master Tom
was; but before he had time to reply, same one called
- “Mind you work there, you rascals.” Looking
in the direction of the sound, I saw master Tom, sitting
under the shade of a sassafras tree, at the distance
of about a hundred yards from us. Deeming it
unsafe to continue in the field without the permission
of its lord, I approached the sassafras tree, with my
hat in my hand, and in a very humble manner, asked
leave to help the people work awhile, as I was tired
of staying about the house and doing nothing. He
said he did not care; I might go and work with them
awhile, but I must take care not to talk too much and
keep his hands from their work.

Now, having authority on my side, I returned, and
taking a hoe from the hands of a small girl, told her
to pull up weeds, and I would take her row for her.
When we arrived at the end of the rows which we
were then hilling, master Tom, who still held his post
under the sassafras tree, called his people to come to
breakfast. Although I had already broken my fast, I
went with the rest for the purpose of seeing what their
breakfast was composed of. At the tree I saw a keg
which contained about five gallons, with water in it,
and a gourd lying by it; near this was a basket made
of splits, large enough to hold more than a peck. It
contained the breakfast of the people, covered by some
green leaves of the magnolia, or great bay tree of the
South. When the leaves were removed, I found that
the supply of provisions consisted of one cake of cornmeal,
weighing about half a pound, for each person
This bread had no sort of seasoning, not even salt, and
constituted the only breakfast of these poor people,
who had been toiling from early dawn until about
eight o'clock. There was no cake for me, and master
Tom did not say anything to me on the state of my
stomach; but the young girl, whose hoe I had taken
in the field, offered me a part of her cake, which I refused.
After the breakfast was despatched, we again
returned to our work; but the master ordered the
girl, whose hoe I had, to go and get another hoe which
lay at some distance in the field, and take her row
again. I continued in the field until dinner, which
took place about one o'clock, and was the same, in all
respects, as the breakfast had been.

Master Tom was the younger of the two brothers
who returned from the cock-fight on the evening of
our arrival at this place, - he left the field about ten
o'clock, and was succeeded by his elder brother, as
overseer for the remainder of the day. After this
change of superintendents, my companions became
more loquacious, and in the course of an hour or two,
I had become familiar with the condition of my
fellow-laborers, who told me that the elder of their
young masters was much less tyrannical than his
younger brother; and that whilst the former remained
in the field they would be at liberty to talk as
much as they pleased, provided they did not neglect
their work. One of the men who appeared to be about
forty years of age, and who was the foreman of the
field, told me that he had been born in South Carolina,
and had always lived there, though he had only
belonged to his present master about ten years. I
asked him if his master allowed him no meat, nor any
kind of provisions except bread; to which he replied
that they never had any meat except at Christmas,
when each hand on the place received about three
pounds of pork; that from September, when the sweet
potatoes were at the maturity of their growth, they
had an allowance of potatoes as long as the crop held
out, which was generally until about March; but that
for the rest of the year, they had nothing but a peck
of corn a week, with such weeds and other vegetables
as they could gather from the fields for greens - that
their master did not allow them any salt, and that the
only means they had of procuring this luxury, was,
by working on Sundays for the neighboring planters,
who paid them in money at the rate of fifty cents per
day, with which they purchased salt and some other
articles of convenience.

This man told me that his master furnished him
with two shirts of tow linen, and two pair of trowsers,
one of woollen and the other of linen cloth, one woollen
jacket, and one blanket every year. That he received
the woollen clothes at Christmas, and the linen
at Easter; and all the other clothes, if any,
he was obliged to provide for himself by working on
Sunday. He said, that for several years past, he had
not been able to provide any clothes for himself; as
he had a wife with several small children, on an adjoining
plantation, whose master gave only one suit
of clothes in the year to the mother, and none of any
kind to the children, which had compelled him to lay
out all his savings in providing clothes for his family,
and such little necessaries as were called for by his
wife from time to time. He had not had a shoe on
his foot for several years, but in winter made a kind
of moccasin for himself of the bark of a tree, which he
said was abundant in the swamps, and could be so
manufactured as to make good ropes, and tolerable
moccasins, sufficient at least to defend the feet from
the frost, though not to keep them dry.

The old man whom I have alluded to before, was
in the field with the others, though he was not able
to keep up with his row. He had no clothes on him
except the remains of an old shirt, which hung in tatters
from his neck and arms; the two young girls
had nothing on them but petticoats, made of coarse
tow-cloth, and the woman, who was the mother of
the children, wore the remains of a tow-linen shift,
the front part of which was entirely gone; but a
piece of old cotton bagging tied round her loins, served
the purposes of an apron The younger of the two
boys was entirely naked

The man who was foreman of the field, was a person
of good sense for the condition of life in which fortune
had placed him, and spoke to me freely of his hard
lot. I observed that under his shirt, which was very
ragged, he wore a piece of fine linen cloth, apparently
part of an old shirt, wrapped closely round his back,
and confined in front by strings, tied down his breast.
I asked him why he wore that piece of gentleman's
linen under his shirt, and shall give his reply in his
own words as well as I can recollect them, at a distance
of near thirty years.

“I have always been a hard working man, and have
suffered a great deal from hunger in my time. It is
not possible for a man to work hard every day for
several months, and get nothing but a peck of corn a
week to eat, and not feel hungry. When a man is
hungry, you know, (if you have ever been hungry,) he
must eat whatever he can get. I have not tasted
meat since last Christmas, and we have had to work
uncommonly hard this summer. Master has a flock
of sheep, that run in the woods, and they come every
night to sleep in the lane near the house. Two weeks
ago last Saturday, when we quit work at night, I was
very hungry, and as we went to the house we passed
along the lane where the sheep lay. There were
nearly fifty of them, and some were very fat. The
temptation was more than I could bear. I caught
one of them, cut its head off with the hoe that I carried
on my shoulder, and threw it under the fence.
About midnight, when all was still about the house,
I went out with a knife, took the sheep into the woods,
and dressed it by the light of the moon. The carcass
I took home, and after cutting it up, placed it in the
great kettle over a good fire, intending to boil it and
divide it, when cooked, between my fellow-slaves
(whom I knew to be as hungry as I was) and myself.
Unfortunately for me, master Tom, who had been out
amongst his friends that day, had not returned at bedtime;
and about one o'clock in the morning, at the
time when I had a blazing fire under the kettle, I
heard the sound of the feet of a horse coming along
the lane. The kitchen walls were open so that the
light of my fire could not be concealed, and in a moment
I heard the horse blowing at the front of the
house. Conscious of my danger, I stripped my shirt
from my back, and pushed it into the boiling kettle,
so as wholly to conceal the flesh of the sheep. I had
scarcely completed this act of precaution, when master
Tom burst into the kitchen, and with a terrible oath,
asked me what I was doing so late at night, with a
great fire in the kitchen. I replied, ‘I am going to
wash my shirt, master, and am boiling it to get it
clean.’ ‘Washing your shirt at this time of night!’
said he, ‘I will let you know that you are not to sit
up all night and be lazy and good for nothing all day.
There shall be no boiling of shirts here on Sunday
morning.’ and thrusting his cane into the kettle, he
raised my shirt out and threw it on the kitchen floor.

“He did not at first observe the mutton, which rose
to the surface of the water as soon as the shirt was
removed; but , after giving the shirt a kick towards
the door, he again turned his face to the fire, and seeing
a leg standing several inches out of the pot, he
demanded of me what I had in there and where I had
got this meat! Finding that I was detected, and
that the whole matter must be discovered, I said, -
‘Master, I am hungry, and am cooking my supper.’
‘What is it you have in here?’ ‘A sheep,’ said I, and
as the words were uttered, he knocked me down with
his cane, and after beating me severely, ordered me to
cross my hands until he bound me fast with a rope
that hung in the kitchen, and answered the double
purpose of a clothes line and a cord to tie us with
when we were to be whipped. He put out the fire
under the kettle, drew me into the yard, tied me fast
to the mill-post, and leaving me there for the night,
went and called one of the negro boys to put his horse
in the stable, and went to his bed. The cord was
bound so tightly round my wrists, that before morning
the blood had burst out under my finger nails;
but I suppose my master slept soundly for all that.
I was afraid to call any one to come and release me
from my torment, lest a still more terrible punishment
might overtake me.

“I was permitted to remain in this situation until
long after sunrise the next morning, which being Sunday,
was quiet and still; my fellow-slaves being permitted
to take their rest after the severe toil of the
past week, and my old master and the two young ones
having no occasion to rise to call the hands to the
field, did not think of interrupting their morning
slumbers, to release me from my painful confinement.
However, when the sun was risen about an hour, I
heard the noise of persons moving in the great house,
and soon after a loud and boisterous conversation,
which I well knew portended no good to me. At
length they all three came into the yard where I lay
lashed to the post, and approaching me, my old master
asked me if I had any accomplices in stealing the
sheep. I told them none - that it was entirely my
own act - and that none of my fellow-slaves had any
hand in it. This was the truth; but if any of my
companions had been concerned with me, I should
not have betrayed them; for such an act of treachery
could not have alleviated the dreadful punishment
which I knew awaited me, and would only have involved
them in the same misery.

“They called me a thief, loaded me with oaths and
imprecations, and each one proposed the punishment
which he deemed the most appropriate to the enormity
of the crime that I had committed. Master
Tom was of opinion, that I should be lashed to the
post at the foot of which I lay, and that each of my
fellow-slaves should be compelled to give me a dozen
lashes in turn, with a roasted and greased hickory
gad , until I had received, in the whole, two hundred
and fifty lashes on my bare back, and that he would
stand by, with the whip in his hand, and compelthem not to spare me; but after a short debate this
was given up, as it would probably render me unable
to work in the field again for several weeks.
My master Ned was in favor of giving me a dozen
lashes every morning for a month, with the whip; but
my old master said, this would be attended with too
much trouble, and besides, it would keep me from my
work, at least half an hour every morning, and proposed,
in his turn, that I should not be whipped at all,
but that the carcass of the sheep should be taken from
the kettle in its half-boiled condition, and hung up in
the kitchen loft without salt; and that I should be
compelled to subsist on this putrid mutton without
any other food, until it should be consumed. This
suggestion met the approbation of my young masters,
and would have been adopted, had not mistress at this
moment come into the yard, and hearing the intended
punishment, loudly objected to it, because the mutton
would, in a day or two, create such an offensive stench,
that she and my young mistresses would not be able
to remain in the house. My mistress swore dreadfully,
and cursed me for an ungrateful sheep thief, who, after
all her kindness in giving me soup and warm bread
when I was sick last winter, was always stealing every
thing I could get hold of. She then said to my master,
that such villany ought not to be passed over in a
slight manner, and that as crimes, such as this, concerned
the whole country, my punishment ought to be
public for the purpose of example; and advised him
to have me whipped that same afternoon, at five
o'clock; first giving notice to the neighborhood to
come and see the spectacle, and to bring with them
their slaves, that they might be witnesses to the consequences
of stealing sheep.

“They then returned to the house to breakfast;
but as the pain in my hands and arms produced by
the ligatures of the cord with which I was bound, was
greater than I could bear, I now felt exceedingly sick,
and lost all knowledge of my situation. They told
me I fainted; and when I recovered my faculties, I
found myself lying in the shade of the house, with my
hands free, and all the white persons in my master's
family standing around me. As soon as I was able to
stand, the rope was tied round my neck, and the other
end again fastened to the mill post. My mistress said
I had only pretended to faint; and master Tom said,
I would have something worth fainting for before
night. He was faithful to his promise; but, for the
present, I was suffered to sit on the grass in the shade
of the house.

“As soon as breakfast was over, my two young
masters had their horses saddled, and set out to give
notice to their friends of what had happened, and to
invite them to come and see me punished for the crime
I had committed. My mistress gave me no breakfast,
and when I begged one of the black boys whom I saw
looking at me through the pales, to bring me some
water in a gourd to drink, she ordered him to bring it
from a puddle in the lane. My mistress has always
been very cruel to all her black people.

“I remained in this situation until about eleven
o'clock, when one of my young mistresses came to me
and gave me a piece of jonny-cake about the size of
my hand, perhaps larger than my hand, telling me at
the same time, that my fellow-slaves had been permitted
to re-boil the mutton that I had left in the kettle,
and make their breakfast of it, but that her mother
would not allow her to give me any part of it. It was
well for them that I had parboiled it with my shirt,
and so defiled it that it was unfit for the table of my
master, otherwise, no portion of it would have fallen
to the black people - as it was, they had as much meat
as they could consume in two days, for which I had to
suffer.

“About twelve o'clock, one of my young masters
returned, and soon afterwards the other came home.
I heard them tell my old master that they had been
round to give notice of my offence to the neighboring
planters, and that several of them would attend to see
me flogged, and would bring with them some of their
slaves, who might be able to report to their companions
what had been done to me for stealing.

“It was late in the afternoon before any of the gentlemen
came; but, before five o'clock, there were more
than twenty white people, and at least fifty black
ones present, the latter of whom had been compelled,
by their masters, to come and see me punished.
Amongst others, an overseer from a neighboring estate
attended; and to him was awarded the office of executioner.
I was stripped of my shirt, and the waistband
of my trousers was drawn closely round me, below
my hips, so as to expose the whole of my back,
in its entire length.

“It seems that it had been determined to beat me
with thongs of raw cow-hide, for the overseer had two
of these in his hands, each about four feet long; but
one of the gentlemen present said this might bruise my
back so badly, that I could not work for sometime;
perhaps not for a week or two; and as I could not be
spared from the field without disadvantage to my master's
crop, he suggested a different plan, by which, in
his opinion, the greatest degree of pain could be inflicted
on me, with the least danger of rendering me
unable to work. As he was a large planter, and had
more than fifty slaves, all were disposed to be guided
by his counsels, and my master said he would submit
the matter entirely to him as a man of judgment and
experience in such cases. He then desired my master
to have a dozen pods of red pepper boiled in half a
gallon of water, and desired the overseer to lay aside
his thongs of raw-hide, and put a new cracker of silk,
to the lash of his negro whip. Whilst these preparations
were being made, each of my thumbs were lashed
closely to the end of a stick about three feet long, and
a chair being placed beside the mill post, I was compelled
to raise my hands and place the stick, to which
my thumbs were bound, over the top of the post, which
is about eighteen inches square; the chair was then
taken from under me, and I was left hanging by the
thumbs, with my face towards the post, and my feet
about a foot from the ground. My two great toes
were then tied together, and drawn down the post as
far as my joints could be stretched; the cord was passed
round the post two or three times and securely fastened.
In this posture I had no power of motion,
except in my neck, and could only move that at the
expense of beating my face against the side of the post.

“The pepper tea was now brought, and poured into
a basin to cool, and the overseer was desired to give
me a dozen lashes just above the waist-band; and not
to cover a space of more than four inches on my back,
from the waist-band upwards. He obeyed the injunction
faithfully, but slowly, and each crack of the whip
was followed by a sensation as painful as if a red hot
iron had been drawn across my back. When the
twelve strokes had been given, the operation was suspended,
and a black man, one of the slaves present,
was compelled to wash the gashes in my skin, with
the scalding pepper tea, which was yet so hot that he
could not hold his hand in it. This doubly-burning
liquid was thrown into my raw and bleeding wounds,
and produced a tormenting smart, beyond the description
of language. After a delay of ten minutes, by
the watch, I received another dozen lashes, on the
part of my back which was immediately above the
bleeding and burning gashes of the former whipping;
and again the biting, stinging, pepper tea was applied
to my lacerated and trembling muscles. This operation
was continued at regular intervals, until I had
received ninety-six lashes, and my back was cut and
scalded from end to end. Every stroke of the whip
had drawn blood; many of the gashes were three inches
long; my back burned as if it had been covered by a
coat of hot embers, mixed with living coals; and I felt
my flesh quiver like that of animals that have been
slaughtered by the butcher and are flayed whilst yet
half alive. My face was bruised, and my nose bled
profusely, for in the madness of my agony, I had not
been able to refrain from beating my head violently
against the post.

“Vainly did I beg and implore for mercy. I was
kept bound to the post with my whole weight hanging
upon my thumbs, an hour and a half, but it appeared
to me that I had entered upon eternity, and that my
sufferings would never end. At length, however, my
feet were unbound, and afterwards my hands; but
when released from the cords, I was so far exhausted
as not to be able to stand, and my thumbs were stiff
and motionless. I was carried into the kitchen, and
laid on a blanket, where my mistress came to see me;
and after looking at my lacerated back, and telling me
that my wounds were only skin deep, said I had come
off well, after what I had done, and that I ought to
be thankful that it was not worse with me. She then
bade me not to groan so loud, nor make so much noise,
and left me to myself. I lay in this condition until it
was quite dark, by which time the burning of my back
had much abated, and was succeeded by an aching
soreness, which rendered me unable to turn over, or
bend my spine in the slightest manner. My mistress
again visited me, and brought with her about half a
pound of fat bacon, which she made one of the black
women roast before the fire on a fork, until the oil ran
freely from it, and then rub it warm over my back.
This was repeated until I was greased from the neck
to the hips, effectually. An old blanket was then
thrown over me, and I was left to pass the night alone.
Such was the terror stricken into my fellow-slaves, by
the example made of me, that although they loved and
pitied me, not one of them dared to approach me during
this night.

“My strength was gone, and I at length fell asleep,
from which I did not awake until the horn was blown
the next morning, to call the people to the corn crib,
to receive their weekly allowance of a peck of corn. I
did not rise, nor attempt to join the other people, and
shortly afterwards my master entered the kitchen, and
in a soft and gentle tone of voice, asked me if I was
dead. I answered him that I was not dead, and making
some effort, found I was able to get upon my feet.
My master had become frightened when he missed me
at the corn crib, and being suddenly seized with an
apprehension that I was dead, his heart had become
softened, not with compassion for my sufferings, but
with the fear of losing his best field hand; but when
he saw me stand before him erect, and upright, the
recollection of the lost sheep revived in his mind, and
with it, all his feelings of revenge against the author
of its death.

“ ‘So you are not dead yet, you thieving rascal,’
said he, and cursing me with many bitter oaths, ordered
me to go along to the crib and get my corn, and go
to work with the rest of the hands. I was forced to
obey, and taking my basket of corn from the door of
the crib, placed it in the kitchen loft, and went to the
field with the other people.

“Weak and exhausted as I was, I was compelled
to do the work of an able hand, but was not permitted
to taste the mutton, which was all given to the others,
who were carefully guarded whilst they were eating,
lest they should give me some of it.”

This man's back was not yet well. Many of the
gashes made by the lash were yet sore, and those that
were healed had left long white stripes across his body.
He had no notion of leaving the service of his tyrannical
master, and his spirit was so broken and subdued
that he was ready to suffer and to bear all his
hardships: not, indeed, without complaining, but
without attempting to resist his oppressors or to escape
from their power. I saw him often whilst I remained
at this place, and ventured to tell him once,
that if I had a master who would abuse me as he had
abused him, I would run away. “Where could I
run, or in what place could I conceal myself?” said
he. “I have known many slaves who ran away, but
they were always caught and treated worse afterwards
than they had been before. I have heard that there
is a place called Philadelphia, where the black people
are all free, but I do not know which way it lies, nor
what road I should take to go there; and if I knew
the way, how could I hope to get there? would not
the patrol be sure to catch me?”

I pitied this unfortunate creature, and was at the
same time fearful that, in a short time, I should be
equally the object of pity myself. How well my fears
were justified the sequel of my narrative will show.

CHAPTER V.

WE had been stationed in the old cotton-gin house
about twenty days, had recovered from the fatigues of
our journey, and were greatly improved in our strength
and appearance, when our master returned one evening,
after an absence of two days, and told us that we
must go to Columbia the next day, and must, for this
purpose, have our breakfast ready by sunrise. On the
following morning he called us at daylight, and we
made all despatch in preparing our morning repast,
the last that we were to take in our present residence.

As our equipments consisted of a few clothes we had
on our persons and a solitary blanket to each individual,
our baggage was easily adjusted, and we were
on the road before the sun was up half an hour; and
in less than an hour we were in Columbia, drawn up in
a long line in the street opposite the court-house.

The town, which was small and mean-looking, was
full of people, and I believe that more than a thousand
gentlemen came to look at us within the course
of this day. We were kept in the street about an
hour, and were then taken into the jail-yard and
permitted to sit down; but were not shut up in the jail.
The court was sitting in Columbia at this time, and
either this circumstance or the intelligence of our
arrival in the country, or both, had drawn together a
very great crowd of people.

We were supplied with victuals by the jailor, and
had a small allowance of salt pork for dinner. We
slept in the jail at night, and as none of us had been
sold on the day of our arrival in Columbia, and we
had not heard any of the persons who came to look at
us make proposals to our master for our purchase, I
supposed it might be his intention to drive us still
farther south before he offered us for sale; but I discovered
my error on the second day, which was Tuesday.
This day the crowd in town was much greater
than it had been on Monday; and, about ten o'clock
our master came into the yard in company with the
jailor, and after looking at us some time, the latter
addressed us in a short speech, which continued perhaps
five minutes. In this harangue he told us we
had come to live in the finest country in the world;
that South Carolina was the richest and best part of
the United States; and that he was going to sell us
to gentlemen who would make us all very happy, and
would require us to do no hard work; but only raise
cotton and pick it. He then ordered a handsome
young lad, about eighteen years of age, to follow him
into the street, where he observed a great concourse
of persons collected. Here the jailor made another
harangue to the multitude, in which he assured them
that he was just about to sell the most valuable lot
of slaves that had ever been offered in Columbia.
That we were all young, in excellent health, of good
habits, having been all purchased in Virginia, from
the estates of tobacco planters; and that there was
not one in the whole lot who had lost the use of a
single finger, or was blind of an eye.

He then cried the poor lad for sale, and the first
bid he received was two hundred dollars. Others
quickly succeeded, and the boy, who was a remarkably
handsome youth, was stricken off in a few minutes to
a young man who appeared not much older than himself,
at three hundred and fifty dollars. The purchaser
paid down his price to our master on a table in the
jail, and the lad, after bidding us farewell, followed
his new master with tears running down his cheeks.

He next sold a young girl, about fifteen or sixteen
years old, for two hundred and fifty dollars to a lady
who attended the sales in her carriage, and made her
bids out of a window. In this manner the sales
were continued for about two hours and a half, when
they were adjourned until three o'clock. In the afternoon
they were again resumed, and kept open until
about five o'clock, when they were closed for the day.
As my companions were sold, they were taken from
amongst us, and we saw them no more.

The next morning, before day, I was awakened from
my sleep by the sound of several heavy fires of cannon,
which were discharged, as it seemed to me, within a
few yards of the place where I lay. These were succeeded
by fifes and drums, and all the noise with
which I had formerly heard the fourth of July ushered
in, at the Navy Yard in Washington.

Since I had left Maryland I had carefully kept the
reckoning of the days of the week, but had not been
careful to note the dates of the month; yet as soon
as daylight appeared, and the door of our apartment
was opened, I inquired and learned that this was, as
I had supposed it to be, the day of universal rejoicing.

I understood that the court did not sit this day,
but a great crowd of people gathered and remained
around the jail all the morning; many of whom were
intoxicated, and sang and shouted in honor of free
government, and the rights of man. About eleven
o'clock, a long table was spread under a row of trees
which grew in the street, not far from the jail, and
which appeared to me to be of the kind called in
Pennsylvania, the pride of China. At this table
several hundred persons sat down to dinner soon after
noon, and continued to eat and drink, and sing songs
in honor of liberty, for more than two hours. At the
end of the dinner a gentleman rose and stood upon
his chair, near one end of the table, and begged the
company to hear him for a few minutes. He informed
them that he was a candidate for some office - but
what office it was I do not recollect - and said, that
as it was an acknowledged principle of our free
government, that all men were born free and equal, he
presumed it would not be deemed an act of arrogance
in him, to call upon them for their votes at the coming
election.

This first speaker was succeeded by another, who
addressed his audience in nearly the same language;
and after he had concluded, the company broke up. I
heard a black man that belonged to the jailer, or, who
was at least in his service, say that there had been a
great meeting that morning in the court house, at which
several gentlemen had made speeches.

When I lived at the navy-yard, the officers sometimes
permitted me to go up town with them, on the
fourth of July, and listen to the fine speeches that were
made there, on such occasions.

About five o'clock, the jailer came and stood at the
front door of the jail, and proclaimed, in a very loud
voice, that a sale of most valuable slaves would immediately
take place; that he had sold many fine hands
yesterday, but they were only the refuse and most
worthless part of the whole lot; - that those who
wished to get great bargains and prime property, had
better attend now; as it was certain that such negroes
had never been offered for sale in Columbia before.

In a few minutes the whole assembly, that had composed
the dinner party, and hundreds of others, were
convened around the jair door, and the jailer again
proceeded with his auction. Several of the stoutest
men and handsomest women in the whole company,
had been reserved for this day; and I perceived that
the very best of us were kept back for the last. We
went off at rather better prices than had been obtained
on the former day; and I perceived much eagerness
amongst the bidders, many of whom were not sober.
Within less than three hours, only three of us remained
in the jail; and we were ordered to come and stand
at the door, in front of the crier, who made a most
extravagant eulogium upon our good qualities and
capacity to perform labor. He said, “These three
fellows are as strong as horses, and as patient as mules;
one of them can do as much work as two common
men, and they are perfectly honest. Mr. M'Giffin
says, he was assured by their former masters that they
were never known to steal, or run away. They must
bring good prices, gentlemen, or they will not be sold.
Their master is determined, that if they do not bring
six hundred dollars, he will not sell them, but will
take them to Georgia next summer, and sell them to
some of the new settlers. These boys can do anything.
This one,” referring to me, “can cut five cords of wood
in a day, and put it up. He is a rough carpenter,
and a first rate field hand. This one,” laying his hand
on the shoulder of one of my companions, “is a blacksmith;
and can lay a ploughshare; put new steel
upon an axe; or mend a broken chain.” The other,
he recommended as a good shoemaker, and well acquainted
with the process of tanning leather.

We were all nearly of the same age; and very stout,
healthy, robust young men, in full possession of our
corporal powers; and if we had been shut up in a
room, with ten of the strongest of those who had
assembled to purchase us, and our liberty had depended
on tying them fast to each other, I have no doubt
that we should have been free, if ropes had been provided
for us.

After a few minutes of hesitancy amongst the
purchasers and a closer examination of our persons than
had been made in the jail-yard, an elderly gentleman
said he would take the carpenter; and the blacksmith,
and shoemaker, were immediately taken by others, at
the required price.

It was now sundown. The heat of the day had
been very oppressive, and I was glad to be released
from the confined air of the jail, and the hot atmosphere,
in which so many hundreds were breathing. -
My new master asked me my name, and ordered me
to follow him.

We proceeded to a tavern, where a great number of
persons were assembled, at a short distance from the
jail. My master entered the house, and joined in the
conversation of the party, in which the utmost hilarity
prevailed. They were drinking toasts in honor of
liberty and independence, over glasses of toddy - a
liquor composed of a mixture of rum, water, sugar,
and nutmeg.

It was ten o'clock at night before my master and his
companions had finished their toasts and toddy; and
all this time, I had been standing before the door, or
sitting on a log of wood, that lay in front of the house.
At one time, I took a seat on a bench, at the side of
the house; but was soon driven from this position by
a gentleman, in military clothes, with a large gilt
epaulet on each shoulder, and a profusion of glittering
buttons on his coat; who passing near me in the dark,
and happening to cast his eye on me, demanded of me,
in an imperious tone, how I dared to sit on that seat.
I told him I was a stranger, and did not know that it
was wrong to sit there. He then ordered me with an
oath, to begone from there; and said, if he caught me
on that bench again, he would cut my head off. “Did
you not see white people sit upon that bench, you saucy
rascal?” said he. I assured him I had not seen any
white gentleman sit on the bench, as it was near night
when I came to the house; that I had not intended to
be saucy, or misbehave myself; and that I hoped he
would not be angry with me, as my master had left
me at the door, and had not told me where I was to sit.

I remained on the log until the termination of the
festival, in honor of liberty and equality; when my
master came to the door, and observed in my hearing,
to some of his friends, that they had celebrated the
day in a handsome manner.

No person, except the military gentleman, had
spoken to me since I came to the house in the evening
with my master, who seemed to have forgotten me;
for he remained at the door, warmly engaged in conversation,
on various political subjects, a full hour after
he rose from the toast party. At length, however, I
heard him say - “I bought a negro this evening - I
wonder where he is.” Rising immediately from the
log on which I had been so long seated, I presented
myself before him, and said, “Here, master.” He
then ordered me to go to the kitchen of the inn, and
go to sleep; but said nothing to me about supper. -
I retired to the kitchen, where I found a large number
of servants, who belonged to the house, and among
them two young girls, who had been purchased by a
gentleman who lived near Augusta; and who, they
told me, intended to set out for his plantation the
next morning, and take them with him.

These girls had been sold out of our company on the
first day; and had been living in the tavern kitchen
since that time. They appeared quite contented, and
evinced no repugnance to setting out the next morning
for their master's plantation. They were of that
order of people who never look beyond the present
day; and so long as they had plenty of victuals, in
this kitchen, they did not trouble themselves with
reflections upon the cotton field.

One of the servants gave me some cold meat and a
piece of wheaten bread, which was the first I had
tasted since I left Maryland, and indeed, it was the
last that I tasted until I reached Maryland again.

I here met with a man who was born and brought
up in the Northern Neck of Virginia, on the banks of
the Potomac, and within a few miles of my native
place. We soon formed an acquaintance, and sat up
nearly all night. He was the chief hostler in the
stable of this tavern, and told me that he had often
thought of attempting to escape, and return to Virginia.
He said he had little doubt of being able to
reach the Potomac; but having no knowledge of the
country beyond that river, he was afraid that he should
not be able to make his way to Philadelphia; which
he regarded as the only place in which he could be
safe from the pursuit of his master. I was myself
then young, and my knowledge of the country, north
of Baltimore, was very vague and undefined. I, however,
told him, that I had heard, that if a black man could
reach any part of Pennsylvania, he would be
beyond the reach of his pursuers. He said he could
not justly complain of want of food; but the services
required of him were so unreasonable, and the punishment
frequently inflicted upon him, so severe, that he
was determined to set out for the North, as soon as
the corn was so far ripe as to be fit to be roasted. He
felt confident, that by lying in the woods and unfrequented
places all day, and traveling only by night,
he could escape the vigilance of all pursuit; and gain
the Northern Neck, before the corn would be gathered
from the fields. He had no fear of wanting food, as
he could live well on roasting ears, as long as the
corn was in the milk; and afterwards, on parched
corn, as long as the grain remained in the field. I
advised him as well as I could, as to the best means
of reaching the State of Pennsylvania, but was not
able to give him any very definite instructions.

This man possessed a very sound understanding,
and having been five years in Carolina, was well acquainted
with the country. He gave me such an account
of the sufferings of the slaves, on the cotton and
indigo plantations - of whom I now regarded myself as
one - that I was unable to sleep any this night.
From the resolute manner in which he spoke of his
intended elopement, and the regularity with which he
had connected the various combinations of the enterprise,
I have no doubt that he undertook that which
he intended to perform. Whether he was successful
or not in the enterprise, I cannot say, as I never saw
him nor heard of him after the next morning.

This man certainly communicated to me the outlines
of the plan, which I afterwards put in execution,
and by which I gained my liberty, at the expense of
sufferings, which none can appreciate, except those
who have borne all that the stoutest human constitution
can bear, of cold and hunger, toil and pain.
The conversation of this slave aroused in my breast
so many recollections of the past, and fears of the future,
that I did not lie down, but sat on an old chair
until daylight.

From the people of the kitchen I again received
some cold victuals for my breakfast, but I did not see
my master until about nine o'clock; the toddy of the
last evening causing him to sleep late this morning.
At length a female slave gave me notice that my
master wished to see me in the dining-room, whither
I repaired without a moment's delay. When I entered
the room he was sitting near the window, smoking
a pipe, with a very long handle - I believe more
than two feet in length.

He asked no questions, but addressing me by the
title of “boy,” ordered me to go with the hostler of
the inn, and get his horse and chaise ready. As soon
as this order could be executed, I informed him that
his chaise was at the door, and we immediately
commenced our journey to the plantation of my master,
which, he told me, lay at the distance of twenty miles
from Columbia. He said I must keep up with him,
and, as he drove at the rate of five or six miles an
hour, I was obliged to run nearly half the time; but
I was then young, and could easily travel fifty or sixty
miles in a day. It was with great anxiety that I
looked for the place, which was in future to be my
home; but this did not prevent me from making such
observations upon the state of the country through
which we traveled, as the rapidity of our march permitted.

This whole region had originally been one vast wilderness
of pine forest, except the low grounds and
river bottoms, here called swamps, in which all the
varieties of trees, shrubs, vines, and plants peculiar to
such places, in southern latitudes, vegetated in unrestrained
luxuriance. Nor is pine the only timber
that grows on the uplands, in this part of Carolina,
although it is the predominant tree, and in some
places prevails to the exclusion of every other - oak,
hickory, sassafras, and many others are found.

Here, also, I first observed groves of the most
beautiful of all the trees of the wood - the great Southern
Magnolia, or Green Bay. No adequate conception
can be formed of the appearance or the fragrance of
this most magnificent tree, by any one who has not
seen it or scented the air when scented by the perfume
of its flowers. It rises in a right line to the height of
seventy or eighty feet; the stem is of a delicate taper
form and casts off numerous branches, in nearly right
angles with itself; the extremities of which decline
gently towards the ground, and become shorter and
shorter in the ascent, until at the apex of the tree
they are scarcely a foot in length, whilst below they
are many times found twenty feet long. The immense
cones formed by these trees are as perfect as those
diminutive forms which nature exhibits in the bur of
the pine tree. The leaf of the Magnolia is smooth,
of an oblong taper form, about six inches in length,
and half as broad. Its color is the deepest and purest
green. The foliage of the Bay tree is as impervious
as a brick wall to the rays of the sun, and its refreshing
coolness, in the heat of a summer day, affords one
of the greatest luxuries of a cotton plantation. It
blooms in May, and bears great numbers of broad, expanded
white flowers, the odor of which is exceedingly
grateful, and so abundant, that I have no doubt that
a grove of these trees in full bloom, may be smelled
at a distance of fifteen or twenty miles. I have heard
it asserted in the South, that their scent has been
perceived by persons fifty or sixty miles from them.

This tree is one of nature's most splendid, and in
the climate where she has placed it, one of her most
agreeable productions. It is peculiar to the southern
temperate latitudes, and cannot bear the rigors of a
northern winter; though I have heard that groves of
the Bay are found on Fishing Creek, in Western Virginia,
not far from Wheeling, and near the Ohio river.
Could this tree be naturalized in Pennsylvania, it
would form an ornament to her towns, cities and country
seats, at once the most tasteful and the most delicious.
A forest of these trees, in the month of May,
resembles a wood, enveloped in an untimely fall of
snow at midsummer, glowing in the rays of a morning
sun.

We passed this day through cotton-fields and pine
woods, alternately; but the scene was sometimes
enlivened by the appearance of lots of corn and sweet
potatoes, which, I observed, were generally planted
near the houses. I afterwards learned that this custom
of planting the corn and potatoes near the house
of the planter, is generally all over Carolina. The
object is to prevent the slaves from stealing, and thus
procuring more food than, by the laws of the plantation,
they are entitled to.

In passing through a lane, I this day saw a field
which appeared to me to contain about fifty acres, in
which people were at work with hoes, amongst a sort
of plants that I had never seen before. I asked my
master what this was, and he told me it was indigo. I
shall have occasion to say more of this plant hereafter.

We at length arrived at the residence of my master,
who descended from his chaise, and leaving me in
charge of the horse at the gate, proceeded to the house
across a long court yard. In a few minutes two young
ladies, and a young gentleman, came out of the house,
and walked to the gate, near which I was with the
horse. One of the ladies said, they had come to look
at me, and see what kind of a boy her pa had brought
home with him. The other one said I was a very
smart looking boy; and this compliment flattered me
greatly - they being the first kind words that had been
addressed to me since I left Maryland. The young
gentleman asked me if I could run fast, and if I had
ever picked cotton. His manner did not impress me
so much in his favor, as the address of his sister had
done for her. These three young persons were the son
and daughters of my master. After looking at me a
short time, my young master (for so I must now call
him) ordered me to take the harness from the horse,
give him water at a well which was near, and come
into the kitchen, where some boiled rice was given
me for my dinner.

I was not required to go to work this first day of my
abode in my new residence; but after I had eaten
my rice, my young master told me I might rest myself or
walk out and see the plantation, but that I must be
ready to go with the overseer the next morning.

CHAPTER VI.

BY the laws of the United States I am still a slave;
and though I am now growing old, I might even yet
be deemed of sufficient value to be worth pursuing as
far as my present residence, if those to whom the law
gives the right of dominion over my person and life,
knew where to find me. For these reasons I have been
advised, by those whom I believe to be my friends, not
to disclose the true names of any of those families in
which I was a slave, in Carolina or Georgia, lest this
narrative should meet their eyes, and in some way
lead them to a discovery of my retreat.

I was now the slave of one of the most wealthy
planters in Carolina, who planted cotton, rice, indigo,
corn, and potatoes; and was the master of two hundred
and sixty slaves.

The description of one great cotton plantation will
give a correct idea of all others; and I shall here present
an outline of that of my master's.

He lived about two miles from Caugaree river, which
bordered his estate on one side, and in the swamps of
which were his rice fields. The country hereabout is
very flat, the banks of the river are low, and in wet
seasons large tracts of country are flooded by the
superabundant water of the river. There are no springs,
and the only means of procuring water on the plantations
is from wells, which must be sunk in general
about twenty feet deep, before a constant supply of
water can be obtained. My master had two of these
wells on his plantation - one at the mansion house,
and one at the quarter.

My master's house was of brick, (brick houses are by
no means common among the planters, whose residences
are generally built of frame work, weather boarded
with pine boards, and covered with shingles of the
white cedar or juniper cypress,) and contained two
large parlors, and a spacious hall or entry on the
ground floor. The main building was two stories high,
and attached to this was a smaller building, one story
and a half high, with a large room, where the family
generally took breakfast, with a kitchen at the farther
extremity from the main building.

There was a spacious garden behind the house,
containing, I believe, about five acres, well cultivated,
and handsomely laid out. In this garden grew a great
variety of vegetables; some of which I have never
seen in the market of Philadelphia. It contained a
profusion of flowers, three different shrubberies, a vast
number of ornamental and small fruit trees, and several
small hot houses, with glass roofs. There was a head
gardener, who did nothing but attend to this garden
through the year; and during the summer he generally
had two men and two boys to assist him. In the
months of April and May this garden was one of the
sweetest and most pleasant places that I was ever in.
At one end of the main building was a small house,
called the library, in which my master kept his books
and papers, and where he spent much of his time.

At some distance from the mansion was a pigeon-house,
and near the kitchen was a large wooden building,
called the kitchen quarter, in which the house
servants slept, and where they generally took their
meals. Here, also, the washing of the family was
done, and all the rough or unpleasant work of the
kitchen department - such as cleaning and salting fish,
putting up pork, &c., was assigned to this place.

There was no barn on this plantation, according to
the acceptation of the word barn in Pennsylvania;
but there was a wooden building, about forty feet long,
called the coach-house, in one end of which the family
carriage and the chaise in which my master rode were
kept. Under the same roof was a stable large enough
to contain a dozen horses. In one end the corn intended
for the horses was kept, and the whole of one
loft was occupied by the blades and tops of the corn.
About a quarter of a mile from the dwelling house
were the huts or cabins of the plantation slaves, standing
in rows. There were thirty-eight of them, generally
about sixteen feet square, and provided with pine
floors. In these cabins were two hundred and fifty
people, of all ages, sexes and sizes. A short distance
from the cabins was the house of the overseer. In one
corner of his garden stood a corn-crib and a provision-house.
A little way off stood the house containing
the cotton-gin. There was no smoke-house, nor any
place for curing meat, and while I was on this plantation
no food was ever salted for the use of the slaves.

I went out into the garden, and after sundown my
old master sent me to the overseer's house. He was
just coming in from the field, followed by a great
number of black people. He asked me my name, and
calling a middle-aged man, who was passing us at
some distance, told him he must take me to live with
him. I followed my new friend to his cabin, which
was the shelter of his wife and five children. Their
only furniture consisted of a few blocks of wood for
seats; a short bench, made of a pine board, which
served as a table; and a small bed in one corner, composed
of a mat, made of common rushes, spread upon
some corn husks, pulled and split into fine pieces, and
kept together by a narrow slip of wood, confined to the
floor by wooden pins. There was a common iron pot
standing beside the chimney, and several wooden spoons
and dishes hung against the wall. Several blankets
also hung against the wall upon wooden pins. An old
box, made of pine boards, without either lock or hinges,
occupied one corner.

At the time I entered this humble abode the mistress
was not at home. She had not yet returned from
the field; having been sent, as the husband informed
me, with some other people late in the evening, to do
some work in a field about two miles distant. I found
a child, about a year old, lying on the mat-bed, and a
little girl about four years old sitting beside it.

These children were entirely naked, and when we
came to the door, the elder rose from its place and ran
to its father, and clasping him round one of his knees,
said, “Now we shall get good supper.” The father
laid his hand upon the head of his naked child, and
stood silently looking in its face - which was turned
upwards toward his own for a moment - and then
turning to me, said, “Did you leave any children
at home?” The scene before me - the question
propounded - and the manner of this poor man and his
child, caused my heart to swell until my breast seemed
too small to contain it. My soul fled back upon the
wings of fancy to my wife's lowly dwelling in Maryland,
where I had been so often met on a Saturday
evening, when I paid them my weekly visit, by my
own little ones, who clung to my knees for protection
and support, even as the poor little wretch now before
me seized upon the weary limb of its hapless and
destitute father, hoping that, naked as he was, (for he
too was naked, save only the tattered remains of a
pair of old trowsers,) he would bring with his return
at evening its customary scanty supper. I was unable
to reply, but stood motionless, leaning against
the walls of the cabin. My children seemed to flit by
the door in the dusky twilight; and the twittering of
a swallow, which that moment fluttered over my head,
sounded in my ear as the infantile tittering of my own
little boy; but on a moment's reflection I knew that
we were separated without the hope of ever again
meeting; that they no more heard the welcome tread
of my feet, and could never again receive the little
gifts with which, poor as I was, I was accustomed to
present them. I was far from the place of my nativity,
in a land of strangers, with no one to care for me
beyond the care that a master bestows upon his ox;
with all my future life one long, waste, barren desert,
of cheerless, hopeless, lifeless slavery; to be varied
only by the pangs of hunger and the stings of the lash.

My revery was at length broken by the appearance
of the mother of the family, with her three eldest
children. The mother wore an old ragged shift; but
the children, the eldest of whom appeared to be about
twelve, and the youngest six years old, were quite
naked. When she came in, the husband told her that
the overseer had sent me to live with them; and she
and her oldest child, who was a boy, immediately set
about preparing their supper, by boiling some of the
leaves of the weed, called lamb's-quarter, in the pot.
This, together with some cakes of cold corn bread,
formed their supper. My supper was brought to me
from the house of the overseer by a small girl, his
daughter. It was about half a pound of bread, cut
from a loaf made of corn meal. My companions gave
me a part of their boiled greens, and we all sat down
together to my first meal in my new habitation.

I had no other bed than the blanket which I had
brought with me from Maryland; and I went to sleep
in the loft of the cabin which was assigned to me as
my sleeping room; and in which I continued to lodge
as long as I remained on this plantation.

The next morning I was waked, at the break of day,
by the sound of a horn, which was blown very loudly.
Perceiving that it was growing light, I came down,
and went out immediately in front of the house of the
overseer, who was standing near his own gate, blowing
the horn. In a few minutes the whole of the working
people, from all the cabins, were assembled; and as it
was now light enough for me distinctly to see such
objects as were about me, I at once perceived the
nature of the servitude to which I was, in future, to
be subject.

As I have before stated, there were altogether on
this plantation, two hundred and sixty slaves; but
the number was seldom stationary for a single week.
Births were numerous and frequent, and deaths were
not uncommon. When I joined them I believe we
counted in all two hundred and sixty-three; but of
these only one hundred and seventy went to the field
to work. The others were children, too small to be of
any service as laborers; old and blind persons, or
incurably diseased. Ten or twelve were kept about the
mansion-house and garden, chosen from the most
handsome and sprightly of the gang.

I think about one hundred and sixty-eight assembled
this morning, at the sound of the horn - two or
three being sick, sent word to the overseer that they
could not come.

The overseer wrote something on a piece of paper,
and gave it to his little son. This I was told was a
note to be sent to our master, to inform him that some
of the hands were sick - it not being any part of the
duty of the overseer to attend to a sick negro.

The overseer then led off to the field, with his horn
in one hand and his whip in the other; we following -
men, women, and children, promiscuously - and a
wretched looking troop we were. There was not an
entire garment amongst us.

More than half of the gang were entirely naked.
Several young girls, who had arrived at puberty, wearing
only the livery with which nature had ornamented
them, and a great number of lads, of an equal or
superior age, appeared in the same costume. There
was neither bonnet, cap, nor head dress of any kind
amongst us, except the old straw hat that I wore, and
which my wife had made for me in Maryland. This
I soon laid aside to avoid the appearance of singularity,
and, as owing to the severe treatment I had endured
whilst traveling in chains, and being compelled to
sleep on the naked floor, without undressing myself,
my clothes were quite worn out, I did not make a
much better figure than my companions; though still
I preserved the semblance of clothing so far, that it
could be seen that my shirt and trowsers had once been
distinct and separate garments. Not one of the others
had on even the remains of two pieces of apparel. -
Some of the men had old shirts, and some ragged
trowsers, but no one wore both. Amongst the women,
several wore petticoats, and many had shifts. Not one
of the whole number wore both of these vestments.

We walked nearly a mile through one vast cotton
field, before we arrived at the place of our intended
day's labor. At last the overseer stopped at the side
of the field, and calling to several of the men by name,
ordered them to call their companies and turn into
their rows. The work we had to do to-day was to
hoe and weed cotton, for the last time; and the men
whose names had been called, and who were, I believe,
eleven in number, were designated as captains, each of
whom had under his command a certain number of the
other hands. The captain was the foreman of his
company, and those under his command had to keep
up with him. Each of the men and women had to
take one row; and two, and in some cases where they
were very small, three of the children had one. The
first captain, whose name was Simon, toot the first
row - and the other captains were compelled to keep
up with him. By this means the overseer had nothing
to do but to keep Simon hard at work, and he was
certain that all the others must work equally hard.

Simon was a stout, strong man, apparently about
thirty-five years of age; and for some reason unknown
to me, I was ordered to take a row next to his. The
overseer with his whip in his hand walked about the
field after us, to see that our work was well done. As
we worked with hoes, I had no difficulty in learning
how the work was to be performed.

The fields of cotton at this season of the year are
very beautiful. The plants, among which we worked
this day, were about three feet high, and in full bloom,
with branches so numerous that they nearly covered
the whole ground - leaving scarcely space enough between
them to permit us to move about, and work with
our hoes.

About seven o'clock in the morning the overseer
sounded his horn; and we all repaired to the shade of
some persimmon trees, which grew in a corner of the
field, to get our breakfast. I here saw a cart drawn
by a yoke of oxen, driven by an old black man, nearly
blind. The cart contained three barrels, filled with
water, and several large baskets full of corn bread
that had been baked in the ashes. The water was for
us to drink, and the bread was our breakfast. The
little son of the overseer was also in the cart, and had
brought with him the breakfast of his father, in a
small wooden bucket.

The overseer had bread, butter, cold ham, and coffee
for his breakfast. Ours was composed of a corn cake,
weighing about three-quarters of a pound, to each
person, with as much water as was desired. I at first
supposed that this bread was dealt out to the people
as their allowance; but on further inquiry I found this
not to be the case. Simon, by whose side I was now
at work, and who seemed much pleased with my agility
and diligence in my duty, told me that here, as
well as every where in this country, each person received
a peck of corn at the crib door, every Sunday
evening, and that in ordinary times, every one had to
grind this corn and bake it, for him or herself, making
such use of it as the owner thought proper; but that
for some time past, the overseer, for the purpose of saving
the time which had been lost in baking the bread,
had made it the duty of an old woman, who was not
capable of doing much work in the field, to stay at the
quarter, and bake the bread of the whole gang. When
baked, it was brought to the field in a cart, as I saw,
and dealt out in loaves.

They still had to grind their own corn, after night;
and as there were only three hand-mills on the plantation,
he said they experienced much difficulty in converting
their corn into meal. We worked in this field all
day; and at the end of every hour, or hour and a quarter,
we had permission to go to the cart, which was moved
about the field, so as to be near us, and get water.

Our dinner was the same, in all respects, as our
breakfast, except that, in addition to the bread, we
had a little salt, and a radish for each person. We
were not allowed to rest at either breakfast or dinner,
longer than while we were eating; and we worked in
the evening as long as we could distinguish the weeds
from the cotton plants.

Simon informed me, that formerly, when they baked
their own bread, they had left their work soon after
sundown, to go home and bake for the next day, but
the overseer had adopted the new policy for the purpose
of keeping them at work until dark.

When we could no longer see to work, the horn was
again sounded, and we returned home. I had now
lived through one of the days - a successsion of which
make up the life of a slave - on a cotton plantation.

As we went out in the morning, I observed several
women, who carried their young children in their arms
to the field. These mothers laid their children at the
side of the fence, or under the shade of the cotton
plants, whilst they were at work; and when the rest
of us went to get water, they would go to give suck to
their children, requesting some one to bring them water
in gourds, which they were careful to carry to the field
with them. One young woman did not, like the others,
leave her child at the end of the row, but had contrived
a sort of rude knapsack, made of a piece of
coarse liven cloth, in which she fastened her child,
which was very young, upon her back; and in this
way carried it all day, and performed her task at the
hoe with the other people. I pitied her, and as we
were going home at night escorted her and learned her
history. She had been brought up a lady's-maid, and
knew little of hardship until she was sold South by a
dissipated master. On this plantation she was obliged
to marry a man she did not like, and was often severely
whipped because she could not do as much work as the
rest. I was affected by her story, and the overseer's
horn interrupted our conversation, at hearing which
she exclaimed, “We are too late, let us run, or we
shall be whipped,” and setting off as fast as she could
run, she left me alone. I quickened my pace, and
arrived in the crowd a moment before her.

CHAPTER VII.

THE overseer was calling over the names of the whole
from a little book, and the first name I heard was that
of my companion - Lydia. As she did not answer, I
said, “Master, the woman that carries her baby on her
back will be here in a minute.” He paid no attention
to what I said, but went on with his call. As the
people answered to their names, they passed off to the
cabins, except three, two women and a man; who,
when their names were called, were ordered to go into
the yard, in front of the overseer's house. My name
was the last on the list, and when it was called I was
ordered into the yard with the three others. Just as
we had entered, Lydia came up out of breath, with the
child in her arms; and following us into the yard,
dropped on her knees before the overseer, and begged
him to forgive her. “Where have you been?” said
he. Poor Lydia now burst into tears, and said, “I
only stopped to talk awhile to this man,” pointing to
me; “but indeed, master overseer, I will never do so
again.” “Lie down,” was his reply. Lydia immediately
fell prostrate upon the ground; and in this position
he compelled her to remove her old tow linen shift,
the only garment she wore, so as to expose her hips,
when he gave her ten lashes, with his long whip, every
touch of which brought blood, and a shriek from the
sufferer. He then ordered her to go and get her supper,
with an injunction never to stay behind again. -
The other three culprits were then put upon their trial.

The first was a middle aged woman, who had, as
her overseer said, left several hills of cotton in the
course of the day, without cleaning and hilling them
in a proper manner. She received twelve lashes. The
other two were charged in general terms, with having
been lazy, and of having neglected their work that
day. Each of these received twelve lashes.

These people all received punishment in the same
manner that it had been inflicted upon Lydia, and
when they were all gone the overseer turned to me and
said - “Boy, you are a stranger here yet, but I called
you in to let you see how things are done here, and to
give you a little advice. When I get a new negro
under my command, I never whip at first; I always
give him a few days to learn his duty, unless he is an
outrageous villain, in which case I anoint him a little
at the beginning. I call over the names of all the
hands twice every week, on Wednesday and Saturday
evenings, and settle with them according to their general
conduct for the last three days. I call the names
of my captains every morning, and it is their business
to see that they have all their hands in their proper
places. You ought not to have staid behind to-night
with Lyd; but as this is your first offence, I shall
overlook it, and you may go and get your supper.” I
made a low bow, and thanked master overseer for his
kindness to me, and left him. This night for supper
we had corn bread and cucumbers; but we had neither
salt, vinegar, nor pepper with the cucumbers.

I had never before seen people flogged in the way
our overseer flogged his people. This plan of making
the person who is to be whipped lie down upon the
ground, was new to me, though it is much practiced
in the South; and I have since seen men, and women
too, cut nearly in pieces by this mode of punishment.
It has one advantage over tying people up by the
hands, as it prevents all accidents from sprains in the
thumbs or wrists.

On Monday morning I heard the sound of the horn
at the usual hour, and repairing to the front of the
overseer's house, found that he had already gone
to the corn crib, for the purpose of distributing corn
among the people, for the bread of the week; or rather
for the week's subsistence, for this corn was all the
provision that our master, or his overseer, usually made
for us; I say usually, for whatever was given to us
beyond the corn, which we received on Sunday evening,
was considered in the light of a bounty bestowed
upon us, over and beyond what we were entitled to,
or had a right to expect to receive.

When I arrived at the crib, the door was unlocked
and open, and the distribution had already commenced.
Each person was entitled to half a bushel of ears of
corn, which was measured out by several of the men
who were in the crib. Every child above six months
old drew this weekly allowance of corn; and in this
way, women who had several small children, had more
corn than they could consume, and sometimes bartered
small quantities with the other people for such things
as they needed, and were not able to procure.

The people received their corn in baskets, old bags,
or any thing with which they could most conveniently
provide themselves. I had not been able, since I came
here to procure a basket, or any thing else to put my
corn in, and desired the man with whom I lived to take
my portion in his basket, with that of his family. This
he readily agreed to do, and as soon as we had received
our share we left the crib.

The overseer attended in person to the measuring of
this corn; and it is only justice to him to say that he
was careful to see that justice was done us. The men
who measured the corn always heaped the measure as
long as an ear would lie on; and he never restrained
their generosity to their fellow-slaves.

In addition to this allowance of corn, we received a
weekly allowance of salt, amounting in general to about
half a gill to each person; but this article was not
furnished regularly, and sometimes we received none
for two or three weeks.

The reader must not suppose, that, on this plantation,
we had nothing to eat beyond the corn and salt.
This was far from the case. I have already described
the gardens, or patches, cultivated by the people, and
the practice which they universally followed of working
on Sunday, for wages. In addition to all these,
an industrious, managing slave would contrive to gather
up a great deal to eat.

I have observed, that the planters are careful of the
health of their slaves, and in pursuance of this rule,
they seldom expose them to rainy weather, especially
in the sickly seasons of the year, if it can be avoided.

In the spring and early parts of the summer, the
rains are frequently so violent, and the ground becomes
so wet, that it is injurious to the cotton to work it, at
least whilst it rains. In the course of the year there
are many of these rainy days, in which the people cannot
go to work with safety; and it often happens that
there is nothing for them to do in the house. At such
time they make baskets, brooms, horse collars, and
other things, which they are able to sell amongst the
planters.

The baskets are made of wooden splits, and the
brooms of young white oak or hickory trees. The
mats are sometimes made of splits, but more frequently
of flags, as they are called - a kind of tall rush,
which grows in swampy ground. The horse or mule
collars are made of husks of corn, though sometimes
of rushes, but the latter are not very durable.

The money procured by these, and various other
means, which I shall explain hereafter, is laid out by
the slaves in purchasing such little articles of necessity
or luxury, as it enables them to procure. A part is
disbursed in payment for sugar, molasses, and sometimes
a few pounds of coffee, for the use of the family;
another part is laid out for clothes for winter; and no
inconsiderable portion of his pittance is squandered
away by the misguided slave for tobacco, and an occasional
bottle of rum. Tobacco is deemed so indispensable
to comfort, nay to existence, that hunger and
nakedness are patiently endured, to enable the slave
to indulge in this highest of enjoyments.

There being few towns in the cotton country, the
shops, or stores, are frequently kept at some cross road,
or other public place, in or adjacent to a rich district
of plantations. To these shops the slaves resort,
sometimes with, and at other times without, the consent
of the overseer, for the purpose of laying out the
little money they get. Notwithstanding all the vigilance
that is exercised by the planters, the slaves, who
are no less vigilant than their masters, often leave the
plantation after the overseer has retired to his bed,
and go to the store.

The store-keepers are always ready to accommodate
the slaves, who are frequently better customers than
many white people; because the former always pay
cash, whilst the latter almost always require credit. In
dealing with the slave, the shop-keeper knows he can
demand whatever price he pleases for his goods, without
danger of being charged with extortion; and he
is ready to rise at any time of the night to oblige friends,
who are of so much value to him.

It is held highly disgraceful, on the part of
storekeepers, to deal with the slaves for any thing but
money, or the coarse fabrics that it is known are the
usual products of the ingenuity and industry of the
negroes; but, notwithstanding this, a considerable
traffic is carried on between the shop-keepers and slaves,
in which the latter make their payments by barter.
The utmost caution and severity of masters and overseers,
are sometimes insufficient to repress the cunning
contrivances of the slaves.

After we had received our corn, we deposited it in
our several houses, and immediately followed the overseer
to the same cotton field, in which we had been at
work on Sunday. Our breakfast this morning was
bread, to which was added a large basket of apples,
from the orchard of our master. These apples served
us for a relish with our bread, both for breakfast and
dinner, and when I returned to the quarter in the evening,
Dinah (the name of the woman who was at the
head of our family) produced at supper, a black jug,
containing molasses, and gave me some of the molasses
for my supper.

I felt grateful to Dinah for this act of kindness, as
I well knew that her children regarded molasses as the
greatest of human luxuries, and that she was depriving
them of their highest enjoyment to afford me the
means of making a gourd full of molasses and water.
I therefore proposed to her and her husband, whose
name was Nero, that whilst I should remain a member
of the family, I would contribute as much towards its
support as Nero himself; or, at least, that I would
bring all my earnings into the family stock, provided
I might be treated as one of its members, and be
allowed a portion of the proceeds of their patch or
garden. This offer was very readily accepted, and
from this time we constituted one community, as long
as I remained among the field hands on this plantation.
After supper was over, we had to grind our corn; but
as we had to wait for our turn at the mill, we did not
get through this indispensable operation before one
o'clock in the morning. We did not sit up all night
to wait for our turn at the mill, but as our several
turns were assigned us by lot, the person who had the
first turn, when done with the mill, gave notice to the
one entitled to the second, and so on. By this means
nobody lost more than half an hour's sleep, and in the
morning every one's grinding was done.

We worked very hard this week. We were now
laying by the cotton, as it is termed; that is, we were
giving the last weeding and hilling to the crop, of
which there was, on this plantation, about five hundred
acres, which looked well, and promised to yield a
fine picking.

In addition to the cotton, there was on this plantation
one hundred acres of corn, about ten acres of indigo,
ten or twelve acres in sweet potatoes, and a rice
swamp of about fifty acres. The potatoes and indigo
had been laid by, (that is, the season of working in
them was past,) before I came upon the estate; and
we were driven hard by the overseer to get done
with the cotton, to be ready to give the corn another
harrowing and hoeing, before the season should be too far
advanced. Most of the corn in this part of the country,
was already laid by, but the crop here had been
planted late, and yet required to be worked.

We were supplied with an abundance of bread, for
a peck of corn is as much as a man can consume in a
week, if he has other vegetables with it; but we were
obliged to provide ourselves with the other articles,
necessary for our subsistence. Nero had corn in his
patch, which was now hard enough to be fit for boiling,
and my friend Lydia had beans in her garden. We
exchanged corn for beans, and had a good supply of
both; but these delicacies we were obliged to reserve
for supper. We took our breakfast in the field, from
the cart, which seldom afforded us any thing better
than bread, and some raw vegetables from the garden.
Nothing of moment occurred amongst us, in this first
week of my residence here. On Wednesday evening,
called settlement-night, two men and a woman were
whipped; but circumstances of this kind were so common,
that I shall, in future, not mention them, unless
something extraordinary attended them.

I could make wooden bowls and ladles, and went to
work with a man who was clearing some new land
about two miles off - on the second Sunday of my sojourn
here - and applied the money I earned in purchasing
the tools necessary to enable me to carry on
my trade. I occupied all my leisure hours, for several
months after this, in making wooden trays, and such
other wooden vessels as were most in demand. These
I traded off, in part, to a store-keeper, who lived about
five miles from the plantation; and for some of my
work I obtained money. Before Christmas, I had sold
more than thirty dollars worth of my manufactures;
but the merchant with whom I traded, charged such
high prices for his goods, that I was poorly compensated
for my Sunday toils, and nightly labors; nevertheless,
by these means, I was able to keep our family
supplied with molasses, and some other luxuries, and
at the approach of winter, I purchased three coarse
blankets, to which Nero added as many, and we had
all these made up into blanket-coats for Dinah, ourselves,
and the children.

About ten days after my arrival, we had a great
feast at the quarter. One night, after we had returned
from the field, the overseer sent for me by his little
son, and when I came to his house, he asked me if I
understood the trade of a butcher - I told him I was
not a butcher by trade, but that I had often assisted
my master and others to kill hogs and cattle, and that
I could dress a hog, or a bullock, as well as most people.
He then told me he was going to have a beef
killed in the morning at the great house, and I must
do it - that he would not spare any of the hands to go
with me, but he would get one of the house boys to
help me.

When the morning came, I went, according to orders,
to butcher the beef, which I expected to find in some
enclosure on the plantation; but the overseer told me
I must take a boy named Toney from the house, whose
business it was to take care of the cattle, and go to
the woods and look for the beef. Toney and I set out
sometime before sunrise, and went to a cow-pen, about
a mile from the house, where he said he had seen the
young cattle only a day or two before. At this cow-pen,
we saw several cows waiting to be milked, I suppose,
for their calves were in an adjoining field, and
separated from them only by a fence. Toney then said,
we should have to go to the long savanna, where the
dry cattle generally ranged, and thither we set off. -
This long savanna lay at the distance of three miles
from the cow-pen, and when we reached it, I found it
to be literally what it was called, a long savanna. It
was a piece of low, swampy ground, several miles in
extent, with an open space in the interior part of it,
about a mile long, and perhaps a quarter of a mile in
width. It was manifest that this open space was
covered with water through the greater part of the
year, which prevented the growth of timber in this
place; though at the time it was dry, except a pond
near one end, which covered, perhaps, an acre of ground.
In this natural meadow every kind of wild grass, common
to such places in the southern country, abounded.

Here I first saw the scrub and saw grasses - the first
of which is so hard and rough, that it is gathered to
scrub coarse wooden furniture, or even pewter; and
the last is provided with edges, somewhat like saw
teeth, so hard and sharp that it would soon tear the
skin off the legs of any one who should venture to walk
through it with bare limbs.

As we entered this savanna, we were enveloped in
clouds of musquitos, and swarms of galinippers, that
threatened to devour us. As we advanced through
the grass, they rose up until the air was thick, and
actually darkened with them. They rushed upon us
with the fury of yellow-jackets, whose hive has been
broken in upon, and covered every part of our persons.
The clothes I had on, which were nothing but a shirt
and trowsers of tow linen, afforded no protection even
against the musquitos, which were much larger than
those found along the Chesapeake Bay; and nothing
short of a covering of leather could have defended me
against the galinippers.

I was pierced by a thousand stings at a time, and
verily believe I could not have lived beyond a few hours
in this place. Toney ran into the pond, and rolled
himself in the water to get rid of his persecutors; but
he had not been long there before he came running out,
as fast as he had gone in, hallooing and clamoring in
a manner wholly unintelligible to me. He was terribly
frightened; but I could not imagine what could
be the cause of his alarm, until he reached the shore,
when he turned round with his face to the water, and
called out - “the biggest alligator in the whole world -
did not you see him?” I told him I had not seen
anything but himself in the water; but he insisted
that he had been chased in the pond by an alligator,
which had followed him until he was close in the shore.
We waited a few minutes for the alligator to rise to the
surface, but were soon compelled by the musquitos, to
quit this place.

Toney said, we need not look for the cattle here;
no cattle could live amongst these musquitos, and I
thought he was right in his judgment. We then proceeded
into the woods and thickets, and after wandering
about for an hour or more, we found the cattle,
and after much difficulty succeeded in driving a part
of them back to the cow-pen, and enclosing them in it.
I here selected the one that appeared to me to be the
fattest and securing it with ropes, we drove the animal
to the place of slaughter.

This beef was intended as a feast for the slaves, at the
laying by of the corn and cotton; and when I had it
hung up, and had taken the hide off, my young master,
whom I had seen on the day of my arrival, came
out to me, and ordered me to cut off the head, neck,
legs, and tail, and lay them, together with the empty
stomach and the harslet, in a basket. This basket
was sent home, to the kitchen of the great house, by a
woman and a boy, who attended for that purpose. I
think there was at least one hundred and twenty or
thirty pounds of this offal. The residue of the carcass
I cut into four quarters, and we carried it to the cellar
of the great house. Here one of the hind quarters was
salted in a tub, for the use of the family, and the other
was sent , as a present, to a planter, who lived about
four miles distant. The two fore-quarters were cut
into very small pieces, and salted by ourselves. -
These, I was told, would be cooked for our dinner on
the next day (Sunday) when there was to be a general
rejoicing among all the slaves of the plantation.

After the beef was salted down, I received some
bread and milk for my breakfast, and we went to join the
hands in the corn field, where they were now harrowing
and hoeing the crop for the last time. The overseer
had promised us that we should have holiday after
the completion of this work, and by great exertion,
we finished it about five o'clock in the afternoon.

On our return to the quarter, the overseer, at roll-call -
which he performed this day before night - told
us that every family must send a bowl to the great
house, to get our dinners of meat. This intelligence
diffused as much joy amongst us, as if each one had
drawn a prize in a lottery. At the assurance of a meat
dinner, the old people smiled and showed their teeth,
and returned thanks to master overseer; but many of
the younger ones shouted, clapped their hands, leaped,
and ran about with delight.

Each family, or mess, now sent its deputy, with a
large wooden bowl in his hand, to receive the dinner
at the great kitchen. I went on the part of our family,
and found that the meat dinner of this day was made
up of the basket of tripe, and other offal, that I had
prepared in the morning. The whole had been boiled
in four great iron kettles, until the flesh had disappeared
from the bones, which were broken in small
pieces - a flitch of bacon, some green corn, squashes,
tomatos, and onions had been added, together with
other condiments, and the whole converted into about
a hundred gallons of soup, of which I received in my
bowl, for the use of our family, more than two gallons.
We had plenty of bread, and a supply of black-eyed
peas, gathered from our garden, some of which Dinah
had boiled in our kettle, whilst I was gone for the soup,
of which there was as much as we could consume, and
I believe that every one in the quarter had enough.

I doubt if there was in the world a happier assemblage
than ours, on this Saturday evening. We had
finished one of the grand divisions of the labors of a
cotton plantation, and were supplied with a dinner,
which to the most of my fellow slaves appeared to be
a great luxury, and most liberal donation on the part
of our master, whom they regarded with sentiments of
gratitude for this manifestation of his bounty.

In addition to present gratification, they looked forward
to the enjoyments of the next day, when they
were to spend a whole Sunday in rest and banqueting;
for it was known that the two fore-quarters of the
bullock were to be dressed for Sunday's dinner, and I
had told them that each of these quarters weighed at
least one hundred pounds.

Our quarter knew but little quiet this night; singing,
playing on the banjo, and dancing, occupied nearly
the whole community, until the break of day. Those
who were too old to take any part in our active pleasures,
beat time with their hands, or recited stories of
former times. Most of these stories referred to affairs
that had been transacted in Africa, and were sufficiently
fraught with demons, miracles, and murders, to fix the
attention of many hearers.

To add to our happiness, the early peaches were now
ripe, and the overseer permitted us to send, on Sunday
morning, to the orchard, and gather at least ten bushels
of very fine fruit.

In South Carolina they have very good summer
apples, but they fall from the trees, and rot immediately
after they are ripe; indeed, very often they speckrot
on the trees, before they become ripe. This “speckrot,”
as it is termed, appears to be a kind of epidemic
disease amongst apples; for in some seasons whole
orchards are subject to it, and the fruit is totally
worthless, whilst in other years, the fruit in the same
orchard continues sound and good, until it is ripe.
The climate of Carolina is, however, not favorable to
the apple, and this fruit of so much value in the north,
is in the cotton region only of a few weeks continuance -
winter apples being unknown. Every climate
is congenial to the growth of some kind of fruit tree;
and in Carolina and Georgia, the peach arrives at its
utmost perfection; the fig also ripens well, and is a
delicious fruit.

None of our people went out to work for wages, today.
Some few devoted a part of the morning to such
work as they deemed necessary in or about their patches,
and some went to the woods, or the swamps, to collect
sticks for brooms, and splits, or to gather flags for mats;
but far the greater number remained at the quarter, occupied
in some small work, or quietly awaiting the hour
of dinner, which we had been informed, by one of the
house-servants, would be at one o'clock. Every family
made ready some preparation of vegetables, from their
own garden, to enlarge the quantity, if not to heighten
the flavor of the dinner of this day.

One o'clock at length arrived, but not before it had
been long desired; and we proceeded with our bowls a
second time, to the great kitchen. I acted, as I had
done yesterday, the part of commissary for our family;
but when we were already at the place where we were
to receive our soup and meat into our bowls, (for it
was understood that we were, with the soup, to have
an allowance of both beef and bacon to-day,) we were
told that puddings had been boiled for us, and that we
must bring dishes to receive them in. This occasioned
some delay, until we obtained vessels from the quarter.
In addition to at least two gallons of soup, about a
pound of beef, and a small piece of bacon, I obtained
nearly two pounds of pudding, made of corn meal,
mixed with lard, and boiled in large bags. This pudding,
with the molasses that we had at home, formed a
very palatable second course to our bread, soup, and
vegetables.

On Sunday afternoon, we had a meeting, at which
many of our party attended. A man named Jacob,
who had come from Virginia, sang and prayed; but a
great many of the people went out about the plantation,
in search of fruits; for there were many peach
and some fig trees, standing along the fences, on various
parts of the estate. With us, this was a day of
uninterrupted happiness.

A man cannot well be miserable when he sees every
one about him immersed in pleasure; and though our
fare of to-day was not of a quality to yield me much
gratification, yet such was the impulse given to my
feelings, by the universal hilarity and contentment
which prevailed amongst my fellows, that I forgot for
the time all the subjects of grief that were stored in
my memory, all the acts of wrong that had been perpetrated
against me, and entered with the most sincere
and earnest sentiments in the participation of the
felicity of our community.

CHAPTER VIII.

AT the time of which I now speak, the rice was ripe,
and ready to be gathered. On Monday morning, after
our feast, the overseer took the whole of us to the rice
field, to enter upon the harvest of this crop. The field
lay in a piece of low ground, near the river, and in
such a position that it could be flooded by the water
of the stream, in wet seasons. The rice is planted in
drills, or rows, and grows more like oats than any of
the other grain known in the north.

The water is sometimes let in to the rice fields, and
drawn off again, several times, according to the state
of the weather. Watering and weeding the rice is
considered one of the most unhealthy occupations on
a southern plantation, as the people are obliged to live
for several weeks in the mud and water, subject to all
the unwholesome vapors that arise from stagnant
pools, under the rays of a summer sun, as well as the
chilly autumnal dews of night. At the time we came
to cut this rice, the field was quite dry; and after we
had reaped and bound it, we hauled it upon wagons, to
a piece of hard ground, where we made a threshing
floor, and threshed it. In some places, they tread out
the rice, with mules or horses, as they tread wheat in
Maryland; but this renders the grain dusty and is injurious
to its sale.

After getting in the rice, we were occupied for some
time in clearing and ditching swampy land, preparatory
to a more extended culture of rice the next year;
and about the first of August, twenty or thirty of the
people, principally women and children, were employed
for two weeks in making cider, of apples which grew
in an orchard of nearly two hundred trees, that stood
on a part of the estate. After the cider was made, a
barrel of it was one day brought to the field, and
distributed amongst us; but this gratuity was not
repeated. The cider that was made by the people
was converted into brandy, at a still in the corner of
the orchard.

I often obtained cider to drink, at the still, which
was sheltered from the weather by a shed, of boards
and slabs. We were not permitted to go into the
orchard at pleasure; but as long as the apples continued,
we were allowed the privilege of sending five or
six persons every evening, for the purpose of bringing
apples to the quarter, for our common use; and by
taking large baskets, and filling them well, we generally
contrived to get as many as we could consume.

When the peaches ripened, they were guarded with
more rigor - peach brandy being an article which is
nowhere more highly prized than in South Carolina.
There were on the plantation more than a thousand
peach trees, growing on poor sandy fields, which were
no longer worth the expense of cultivation. The best
peaches grow upon the poorest sand-hills.

We were allowed to take three bushels of peaches
every day, for the use of the quarter; but we could,
and did eat at least three times that quantity, for we
stole at night that which was not given us by day. I
confess that I took part in these thefts, and I do not
feel that I committed any wrong, against either God
or man, by my participation in the common danger
that we ran, for we well knew the consequences that
would have followed detection.

After the feast at laying by the corn and cotton, we
had no meat for several weeks; and it is my opinion
that our master lost money by the economy he practised
at this season of the year.

I now entered upon a new scene of life. My true
value had not yet been ascertained by my present
owner; and whether I was to hold the rank of a first
or second rate hand, could only be determined by an
experience of my ability to pick cotton.

I had ascertained that at the hoe, the spade, the
sickle, or the flail, I was a full match for the best hands
on the plantation; but soon discovered when we came
to cotton picking I was not equal to a boy of fifteen.
I worked hard the first day, but when evening, came,
and our cotton was weighed, I had only thirty-eight
pounds, and was vexed to see that two young men,
about my own age, had, one fifty-eight, and the other
fifty-nine pounds. This was our first day's work, and
the overseer had not yet settled the amount of a day's
picking. It was necessary for him to ascertain, by the
experience of a few days, how much the best hands
could pick in a day, before he established the standard
of the season. I hung down my head, and felt very
much ashamed of myself when I found that my cotton
was so far behind that of many, even of the women,
who had heretofore regarded me as the strongest and
most powerful man of the whole gang.

I had exerted myself to-day to the utmost of my
power; and as the picking of cotton seemed to be so
very simple a business, I felt apprehensive that I should
never be able to improve myself, so far as to become
even a second rate hand. In this posture of affairs, I
looked forward to something still more painful than
the loss of character which I must sustain, both with
my fellows and my master; for I knew that the lash
of the overseer would soon become familiar with my
back, if I did not perform as much work as any of the
other young men.

I expected indeed that it would go hard with me
even now, and stood by with feelings of despondence
and terror, whilst the other people were getting their
cotton weighed. When it was all weighed, the overseer
came to me where I stood, and told me to show
him my hands. When I had done this, and he had
looked at them, he observed - “You have a pair of
good hands - you will make a good picker.” This
faint praise of the overseer revived my spirits greatly,
and I went home with a lighter heart than I had expected
to possess, before the termination of cotton-picking.

When I came to get my cotton weighed, on the
evening of the second day, I was rejoiced to find that
I had forty-six pounds, although I had not worked
harder than I did the first day. On the third evening
I had fifty-two pounds; and before the end of the
week; there were only three hands in the field - two
men and a young woman - who could pick more cotton
in a day than I could.

On the Monday morning of the second week, when
we went to the field, the overseer told us that he fixed
the day's work at fifty pounds; and that all those who
picked more than that, would be paid a cent a pound
for the overplus. Twenty-five pounds was assigned as
the daily task of the old people, as well as a number
of boys and girls, whilst some of the women, who had
children, were required to pick forty pounds, and several
children had ten pounds each as their task.

Picking of cotton may almost be reckoned among
the arts. A man who has arrived at the age of twenty-five
before he sees a cotton field, will never, in the language
of the overseer, become a crack picker.

By great industry and vigilance, I was able, at the
end of a month, to return every evening a few pounds
over the daily rate, for which I received my pay; but
the business of picking cotton was a fatiguing labor to
me, and one to which I never became reconciled, for
the reason that in every other kind of work I was called
a first rate hand, whilst in cotton picking I was hardly
regarded as a prime hand.

CHAPTER IX.

IT is impossible to reconcile the mind of the native
slave to the idea of living in a state of perfect equality,
end boundless affection, with the white people. Heaven
will be no heaven to him, if he is not to be avenged of
his enemies. I know, from experience, that these are
the fundamental rules of his religious creed; because
I learned them in the religious meetings of the slaves
themselves. A favorite and kind master or mistress,
may now and then be admitted into heaven, but this
rather as a matter of favor, to the intercession of some
slave, than as matter of strict justice to the whites,
who will, by no means, be of an equal rank with those
who shall be raised from the depths of misery, in this
world.

The idea of a revolution in the conditions of the
whites and the blacks, is the corner-stone of the religion
of the latter; and indeed, it seems to me, at
least, to be quite natural, if not in strict accordance
with the precepts of the Bible; for in that book I find
it every where laid down, that those who have possessed
an inordinate portion of the good things of this
world, and have lived in ease and luxury, at the expense
of their fellow men will surely have to render an
account of their stewardship, and be punished, for
having withheld from others the participation of those
blessings, which they themselves enjoyed.

There is no subject which presents to the mind of
the male slave a greater contrast between his own condition
and that of his master, than the relative station
and appearance of his wife and his mistress. The one,
poorly clad, poorly fed, and exposed to all the hardships
of the cotton field; the other dressed in clothes
of gay and various colors, ornamented with jewelry,
and carefully protected from the rays of the sun, and
the blasts of the wind.

As I have before observed, the Africans have feelings
peculiar to themselves; but with an American slave,
the possession of the spacious house, splendid furniture,
and fine horses of his master, are but the secondary
objects of his desires. To fill the measure of his happiness,
and crown his highest ambition, his young and
beautiful mistress must adorn his triumph, and enliven
his hopes.

I have been drawn into the above reflections, by the
recollection of an event of a most melancholy character,
which took place when I had been on this plantation
about three months. Amongst the house-servants of
my master, was a young man, named Hardy, of a dark
yellow complexion - a quadroon, or mulatto - one-fourth
of whose blood was transmitted from white parentage.

Hardy was employed in various kinds of work about
the house, and was frequently sent of errands; sometimes
on horseback. I had become acquainted with
the boy, who had often come to see me at the quarter,
and had sometimes staid all night with me, and often
told me of the ladies and gentlemen who visited at
the great house.

Amongst others, he frequently spoke of a young
lady, who resided six or seven miles from the plantation,
and often came to visit the daughters of the family,
in company with her brother, a lad about twelve or
fourteen years of age. He described the great beauty
of this girl, whose mother was a widow, living on a small
estate of her own. This lady did not keep a carriage;
but her son and daughter, when they went abroad,
traveled on horseback.

One Sunday, these two young people came to visit
at the house of my master, and remained until after
tea in the evening. As I did not go out to work that
day, I went over to the great house, and from the
house to a place in the woods, about a mile distant,
where had set snares for rabbits. This place was
near the road, and I saw the young lady and her brother
on their way home. It was after sundown when
they passed me; but, as the evening was clear and
pleasant, I supposed they would get home soon after
dark, and that no accident would befall them.

No more was thought of the matter this evening,
and I heard nothing further of the young people until
the next day, about noon, when a black boy came into
the field, where we were picking cotton, and went to
the overseer with a piece of paper. In a short time
the overseer called me to come with him; and, leaving
the field with the hands under the orders of Simon,
the first captain, we proceeded to the great house.

As soon as we arrived at the mansion, my master,
who had not spoken to me since the day we came from
Columbia, appeared at the front door, and ordered me
to come in and follow him. He led me through a
part of the house, and passed into the back yard, where
I saw the young gentleman, his son, another gentleman
whom I did not know, the family doctor, and the overseer,
all standing together, and in earnest conversation.
At my appearance, the overseer opened a cellar door,
and ordered me to go in. I had no suspicion of evil,
and obeyed the order immediately: as, indeed, I must
have obeyed it, whatever might have been my suspicions.

The overseer, and the gentlemen, all followed; and
as soon as the cellar door was closed after us, by some
one whom I could not see, I was ordered to pull off my
clothes, and lie down on my back. I was then bound
by the hands and feet, with strong cords, and extended
at full length between two of the beams that supported
the timbers of the building.

The stranger, who I now observed was much agitated,
spoke to the doctor, who then opened a small case
of surgeons' instruments, which he took from his
pocket, and told me he was going to skin me for what
I had done last night: “But,” said the doctor, “before
you are skinned, you had better confess your
crime.” “What crime, master, shall I confess? I
have committed no crime - what has been done, that
you are going to murder me?” was my reply. My
master then asked me why I had followed the young
lady and her brother, who went from the house the
evening before, and murdered her? Astonished and
terrified at the charge of being a murderer, I knew not
what to say; and only continued the protestations of
my innocence, and my entreaties not to be put to death.
My young master was greatly enraged against me, and
loaded me with maledictions and imprecations; and
his father appeared to be as well satisfied as he was of
my guilt, but was more calm, and less vociferous in
his language.

The doctor, during this time, was assorting his
instruments, and looking at me - then stooping down,
and feeling my pulse, he said, it would not do to skin
a man so full of blood as I was. I should bleed so
much that he could not see to do his work; and he
should probably cut some large vein, or artery, by
which I should bleed to death in a few minutes; it
was necessary to bleed me in the arms for some time,
so as to reduce the quantity of blood that was in me,
before taking my skin off. He then bound a string
round my right arm, and opened a vein near the middle
of the arm, from which the blood ran in a large
and smooth stream. I already began to feel faint,
with the loss of blood, when the cellar door was
thrown open, and several persons came down, with
two lighted candles.

I looked at these people attentively, as they came
near and stood around me, and expressed their
satisfaction at the just and dreadful punishment that I
was about to undergo. Their faces were all new and
unknown to me, except that of a lad, whom I recognized
as the same who had ridden by me, the preceding
evening, in company with his sister.

My old master spoke to this boy by name, and told
him to come and see the murderer of his sister receive
his due. The boy was a pretty youth, and wore his
hair long, on the top of his head, in the fashion of that
day. As he came round near my head, the light of a
candle, which the doctor held in his hand, shone full
in my face, and seeing that the eyes of the boy met
mine, I determined to make one more effort to save
my life, and said to him, in as calm a tone as I could,
“Young master, did I murder young mistress, your
sister?” The youth immediately looked at my master,
and said, “This is not the man - this man has
short wool, and he had long wool, like your Hardy.”

My life was saved. I was snatched from the most
horrible of tortures, and from a slow and painful death.
I was unbound, the bleeding of my arm stopped, and
I was suffered to put on my clothes, and go up into
the back yard of the house, where I was required to
tell what I knew of the young lady and her brother
on the previous day. I stated that I had seen them
in the court yard of the house, at the time I was in
the kitchen; that I had then gone to the woods, to
set my snares, and had seen them pass along the road
near me, and that this was all the knowledge I had of
them. The boy was then required to examine me
particularly, and ascertain whether I was, or was not,
the man who had murdered his sister. He said he had
not seen me at the place where I stated I was, and
that he was confident I was not the person who had
attacked him and his sister. That my hair, or wool,
as he called it, was short; but that of the man who
committed the crime was long, like Hardy's, and that
he was about the size of Hardy - not so large as I was,
but black like me, and not yellow like Hardy. Some
one now asked where Hardy was, and he was called for,
but could not be found in the kitchen. Persons were
sent to the quarter, and other places, in quest of him,
but returned without him. Hardy was nowhere to be
found. Whilst this inquiry, or rather search, was
going on, perceiving that my old master had ceased to
look upon me as a murderer, I asked him to please to
tell me what had happened, that had been so near
proving fatal to me.

I was now informed that the young lady, who had
left the house on the previous evening in company with
her brother, had been assailed on the road, about four
miles off, by a black man, who had sprung from a
thicket, and snatched her from her horse, as she was
riding a short distance behind her brother. That the
assassin, as soon as she was on the ground, struck her
horse a blow with a long stick, which, together with
the fright caused by the screams of its rider when torn
from it, had caused it to fly off at full speed; and the
horse of the brother also taking fright, followed in pursuit,
notwithstanding all the exertions of the lad to
stop it. All the account the brother could give of the
matter was, that as his horse ran with him, he saw the
negro drag his sister into the woods, and heard her
screams for a short time. He was not able to stop his
horse, until he reached home, when he gave information
to his mother and her family. That people had
been scouring the woods all night, and all the morning,
without being able to find the young lady.

When intelligence of this horrid crime was brought
to the house of my master, Hardy was the first to receive
it; he having gone to take the horse of the person -
a young gentleman of the neighborhood - who
bore it, and who immediately returned to join his
friends in their search for the dead body.

As soon as the messenger was gone, Hardy had come
to my master, and told him that if he would prevent
me from murdering him, he would disclose the perpetrator
of the crime. He was then ordered to communicate
all he knew on the subject; and declared that,
having gone into the woods the day before, to hunt
squirrels, he staid until it was late, and on his return
home, hearing the shrieks of a woman, he had proceeded
cautiously to the place; but before he could
arrive at the spot, the cries had ceased; nevertheless,
he had found me, after some search, with the body of
the young lady, whom I had just killed, and that I
was about to kill him too, with a hickory club, but he
had saved his life by promising that he would never
betray me. He was glad to leave me, and what I had
done with the body he did not know.

Hardy was known in the neighborhood, and his
character had been good. I was a stranger, and on
inquiry, the black people in the kitchen supported
Hardy, by saying, that I had been seen going to the
woods before night by the way of the road which the
deceased had traveled These circumstances were
deemed conclusive against me by my master; and as
the offence of which I was believed to be guilty was
the highest that can be committed by a slave, according
to the opinion of owners, it was determined to
punish me in a way unknown to the law, and to inflict
tortures upon me which the law would not tolerate.
I was now released, and though very weak from the
effects of bleeding, I was yet able to return to my own
lodgings.

I had no doubt that Hardy was the perpetrator of
the crime for which I was so near losing my life; and
now recollected that when I was at the kitchen of the
great house on Sunday, he had disappeared, a short
time before sundown, as I had looked for him when I
was going to set my snares, but could not find him. -
I went back to the house, and communicated this fact
to my master.

By this time, nearly twenty white men had collected
about the dwelling, with the intention of going to
search for the body of the lost lady; but it was now
resolved to make the look-out double, and to give it
two-fold character of a pursuit of the living, as well
as a seeking for the dead

I now returned to my lodgings in the quarter, and
soon fell into a profound sleep, from which I did not
awake until long after night, when all was quiet, and
the stillness of undisturbed tranquility prevailed over
our little community. I felt restless, and sunk into a
labyrinth of painful reflections, upon the horrid and
perilous condition from which I had this day escaped,
as it seemed, merely by chance; and as I slept until
all sensations of drowsiness had left me, I rose from
my bed, and walked out by the light of the moon,
which was now shining. After being in the open air
some time, I thought of the snares I had set on Sunday
evening, and determined to go and see if they had
taken any game. I sometimes caught oppossums in
my snares; and, as these animals were very fat at this
season of the year, I felt a hope that I might be fortunate
enough to get one to-night. I had been at my
snares, and had returned, as far as the road, near
where I had seen the young lady and her brother on
horseback on Sunday evening, and had seated myself
under the boughs of a holly bush that grew there. It
so happened that the place where I sat was in the
shade of the bush, within a few feet of the road, but
screened from it by some small boughs. In this position,
which I had taken by accident, I could see a
great distance along the road, towards the end of my
master's lane. Though covered as I was by the shade,
and enveloped in boughs, it was difficult for a person
in the road to see me.

The occurrence that had befallen me, in the course
of the previous day, had rendered me nervous, and
easily susceptible of all the emotions of fear. I had
not been long in this place, when I thought I heard
sounds, as of a person walking on the ground at a quick
pace; and looking along the road, towards the lane I
saw the form of some one, passing through a space in
the road, where the beams of the moon, piercing between
two trees, reached the ground. When the moving
body passed into the shade, I could not see it; but
in a short time, it came so near that I could distinctly
see that it was a man, approaching me by the road.
When he came opposite me, and the moon shone full
in his face, I knew him to be a young mulatto, named
David, the coachman of a widow lady, who resided
somewhere near Charleston; but who had been at the
house of my master, for two or three weeks, as a visiter,
with her two daughters.

This man passed on at a quick step, without observing
me; and the suspicion instantly riveted itself in my
mind, that he was the murderer, for whose crime I had
already suffered so much, and that he was now on his
way to the place where he had left the body, for the
purpose of removing, or burying it in the earth. I was
confident, that no honest purpose could bring him to
this place, at this time of night, alone. I was about
two miles from home, and an equal distance from the
spot where the girl had been seized.

Of her subsequent murder, no one entertained a
doubt; for it was not to be expected, that the fellow
who had been guilty of one great crime, would flinch
from the commission of another, of equal magnitude,
and suffer his victim to exist, as a witness to identify
his person.

I felt animated, by a spirit of revenge, against the
wretch, whoever he might be, who had brought me so
near to torture and death; and feeble and weak as I
was, resolved to pursue the foot-steps of this coachman,
at a wary and cautious distance, and ascertain, if possible,
the object of his visit to these woods, at this
time of night.

I waited until he had passed me more than a hundred
yards, and until I could barely discover his form
in the faint light of the deep shade of the trees, when
stealing quietly into the road, I followed, with the
caution of a spy traversing the camp of an enemy. -
We were now in a dark pine forest, and on both sides
of us were tracts of low, swampy ground, covered with
thickets so dense as to be difficult of penetration even
by a person on foot. The road led along a neck of
elevated and dry ground, that divided these swamps
for more than a mile, when they terminated, and were
succeeded by ground that produced scarcely any other
timber than a scrubby kind of oak, called black jack.
It was amongst these black jacks, about half a mile
beyond the swamps, that the lady had been carried off.
I had often been here, for the purpose of snaring and
trapping the small game of these woods, and was well
acquainted with the topography of this forest, for some
distance, on both sides of the road.

It was necessary for me to use the utmost caution
in the enterprise I was now engaged in. The road
we were now traveling, was in no place very broad, and
at some points barely wide enough to permit a carriage
to pass between the trees, that lined its sides. In some
places, it was so dark that I could not see the man,
whose steps I followed; but was obliged to depend on
the sound, produced by the tread of his feet, upon the
ground. I deemed it necessary to keep as close as
possible to the object of my pursuit, lest he should
suddenly turn into the swamp, on one side or the other
of the road, and elude my vigilance; for I had no
doubt that he would quit the road, somewhere. As
we approached the termination of the low grounds, my
anxiety became intense, lest he should escape me; and
at one time, I could not have been more than one hundred
feet behind him; but he continued his course,
until he reached the oak woods, and came to a place
where an old cart-road led off to the left, along the side
of the Dark Swamp, as it was termed in the neighborhood.

This road the mulatto took, without turning to
look behind him. Here my difficulties and perils
increased, for I now felt myself in danger, as I had no
longer any doubt, that I was on the trail of the murderer,
and that, if discovered by him, my life would be
the price of my curiosity. I was too weak to be able
to struggle with him, for a minute; though if the
blood which I had lost, through his wickedness, could
have been restored to my veins, I could have seized
him by the neck, and strangled him.

The road I now had to travel, was so little frequented,
that bushes of the ground oak and bilberry stood
thick in almost every part of it. Many of these
bushes were full of dry leaves, which had been touched
by the frost, but had not yet fallen. It was easy
for me to follow him, for I pursued by the noise he
made, amongst these bushes; but it was not so easy
for me to avoid, on my part, the making of a rustling,
and agitation of the bushes, which might expose me
to detection. I was now obliged to depend wholly on
my ears, to guide my pursuit, my eyes being occupied
in watching my own way, to enable me to avoid every
object, the touching of which was likely to produce
sound.

I followed this road more than a mile, led by the
cracking of the sticks, or the shaking of the leaves.
At length, I heard a loud, shrill whistle, and then a
total silence succeeded. I now stood still, and in a
few seconds, heard a noise in the swamp like the
drumming of a pheasant. Soon afterwards, I heard
the breaking of sticks, and the sounds caused by the
bending of branches of trees. In a little time, I was
satisfied that something having life was moving in the
swamp, and coming towards the place where the mulatto
stood.

This was at the end of the cart-road, and opposite
some large pine trees, which grew in the swamp, at
the distance of two or three hundred yards from its
margin. The noise in the swamp still approached us;
and at length a person came out of the thicket, and
stood for a minute, or more, with the mulatto whom I
had followed; and then they both entered the swamp,
and took the course of the pine trees, as I could easily
distinguish by my ears.

When they were gone, I advanced to the end of the
road and sat down upon a log, to listen to their progress
through the swamp. At length, it seemed that
they had stopped, for I no longer heard any thing of
them. Anxious, however, to ascertain more of this
mysterious business, I remained in silence on the log,
determined to stay there until day, if I could not sooner
learn something to satisfy me, why these men had
gone into the swamp. All uncertainty upon this subject
was, however, quickly removed from my mind;
for within less than ten minutes, after I had ceased
to hear them moving in the thicket, I was shocked
by the faint, but shrill wailings of a female voice,
accompanied with exclamations and supplications,
in a tone so feeble that I could only distinguish a few
solitary words.

My mind comprehended the whole ground of this
matter, at a glance. The lady supposed to have been
murdered on Sunday evening, was still living; and
concealed by the two fiends who had passed out of my
sight but a few minutes before. The one I knew, for
I had examined his features, within a few feet of me,
in the full light of the moon; and, that the other was
Hardy, I was as perfectly convinced, as if I had seen
him also.

I now rose to return home; the cries of the female
in the swamp still continuing, but growing weaker,
and dying away, as I receded from the place where I
had sat.

I was now in possession of the clearest evidence of
the guilt of the two murderers; but I was afraid to
communicate my knowledge to my master, lest he
should suspect me of being an accomplice in this crime;
and, if the lady could not be recovered alive, I had no
doubt that Hardy and his companion were sufficiently
depraved to charge me as a participation with themselves,
to be avenged upon me. I was confident that
the mulatto, David, would return to the house before
day, and be found in his bed in the morning; which
he could easily do, for he slept in a part of the stable
loft; under pretence of being near the horses of his
mistress.

I thought it possible, that Hardy might also return
home that night, and endeavor to account for his
absence from home on Monday afternoon, by some
ingenious lie; in the invention of which I knew him to
be very expert. In this case, I saw that I should have
to run the risk of being overpowered by the number
of my false accusers; and, as I stood alone, they
might yet be able to sacrifice my life, and escape the
punishment due to their crimes. After much consideration,
I came to the resolution of returning, as quick
as possible, to tho quarter - calling up the overseer -
and acquainting him with all that I had seen, heard,
and done, in the course of this night.

As I did not know what time of night it was when
left my bed, I was apprehensive that day might
break before I could so far mature my plans as to have
persons to waylay and arrest the mulatto on his return
home; but when I roused the overseer he told me it
was only one o'clock, and seemed but little inclined to
credit my story; but after talking to me several
minutes he told me he, now more than ever, suspected
me to be the murderer, but he would go with me
and see if I had told the truth. When we arrived
at the great house, some members of the family had
not yet gone to bed, having been kept up by the arrival
of several gentlemen who had been searching the
woods all day for the lost lady, and who had come
here to seek lodgings when it was near midnight.
My master was in bed, but was called up and listened
attentively to my story - at the close of which he shook
his head, and said with an oath, “You - , I believe
you to be the murderer; but we will go and see if all
you say is a lie; if it is, the torments of - will be
pleasure to what awaits you. You have escaped once,
but you will not get off a second time.” I now found
that somebody must die; and if the guilty could not
be found, the innocent would have to atone for them.
The manner in which my master had delivered his
words, assured me that the life of somebody must be
taken.

This new danger aroused my energies - and I told
them that I was ready to go, and take the consequences.
Accordingly, the overseer, my young master,
and three other gentlemen, immediately set out with
me. It was agreed that we should all travel on foot,
the overseer and I going a few paces in advance of the
others. We proceeded silently, but rapidly, on
way; and as we passed it, I shewed them the place
where I sat under the holly bush, when the mulatto
passed me. We neither saw nor heard any person on
the road, and reached the log at the end of the cart-road,
where I sat when I heard the cries in the swamp.
All was now quiet, and our party lay down in the
bushes on each side of a large gum tree, at the root
of which the two murderers stood when they talked
together, before they entered the thicket. We had not
been here more than an hour, when I heard, as I lay
with my head near the ground, a noise in the swamp,
which I believed could only be made by those whom
we sought.

I, however, said nothing, and the gentlemen did not
hear it. It was caused, as I afterwards ascertained,
by dragging the fallen branch of a tree along the
ground, for the purpose of lighting the fire.

The night was very clear and serene - its silence
only being broken at intervals by the loud hooting of
the great long-eared owls, which are numerous in these
swamps. I felt oppressed by the cold, and was glad
to hear the crowing of a cock, at a great distance,
announcing the approach of day. This was followed,
after a short interval, by the cracking of sticks, and by
other tokens, which I knew could proceed only from
the motions of living bodies. I now whispered to the
overseer, who lay near me, that it would soon appear
whether I had spoken the truth or not.

All were now satisfied that people were coming out
of the swamp, for we heard them speak to each other.
I desired the overseer to advise the other gentlemen to
let the culprits come out of the swamp, and gain the
high ground, before we attempted to seize them; but
this counsel was, unfortunately, not taken; and when
they came near to the gum tree, and it could be clearly
seen that there were two men and no more, one of the
gentlemen called out to them to stop, or they were
dead. Instead, however, of stopping, they both sprang
forward, and took to flight. They did not turn into
the swamp, for the gentleman who ordered them to
stop, was in their rear - they having already passed
him. At the moment they had started to run, each
of the gentlemen fired two pistols at them. The pistols
made the forest ring on all sides; and I supposed
it was impossible for either of the fugitives to escape
from so many balls. This was, however, not the case;
for only one of them was injured. The mulatto,
David, had one arm and one leg broken, and fell about
ten yards from us; but Hardy escaped, and when the
smoke cleared away, he was nowhere to be seen. On
being interrogated, David acknowledged that the lady
was in the swamp, on a small island, and was yet alive
- that he and Hardy had gone from the house on Sunday,
for the purpose of waylaying and carrying her off,
and intended to kill her little brother - this part of the
duty being assigned to him, whilst Hardy was to drag
the sister from her horse. As they were both mulattos,
they blacked their faces with charcoal, taken from
a pine stump partially burned. The boy was riding
before his sister, and when Hardy seized her and dragged
her from her horse, she screamed and frightened
both the horses, which took off at full speed, by which
means the boy escaped. Finding that the boy was out
of his reach, David remained in the bushes until Hardy
brought the sister to him. They immediately tied a
handkerchief round her face, so as to cover her mouth
and stifle her shrieks; and taking her in their arms
carried her back toward my master's house, for some
distance, through the woods, until they came to the
cart-road leading along the swamp. They then followed
this road as far as it led, and, turning into the
swamp, took their victim to a place they had prepared
for her the Sunday before, on a small knoll in the
swamp, where the ground was dry.

Her hands were closely confined, and she was tied
by the feet to a tree. He said he had stolen some
bread, and taken it to her that night; but when they
unbound her mouth to permit her to eat, she only
wept and made a noise, begging them to release her,
until they were obliged again to bandage her mouth.

It was now determined by the gentlemen, that as
the lady was still alive, we ought not to lose a moment
in endeavoring to rescue her from her dreadful situation.
I pointed out the large pine trees, in the direction
of which I heard the cries of the young lady, and
near which I believed she was - undertaking, at the
same time, to act as pilot, in penetrating the thicket.
Three of the gentlemen and myself accordingly set
out, leaving the other two with the wounded mulatto
with directions to inform us when we deviated from a
right line to the pine trees. This they were able to
do by attending to the noise we made, with nearly as
much accuracy as if they had seen us.

The atmosphere had now become a little cloudy,
and the morning was very dark, even in the oak woods;
but when we had entered the thickets of the swamp,
all objects became utterly invisible; and the obscurity
was as total as if our eyes had been closed. Our
companions on the dry ground lost sight of the pine trees,
and could not give us any directions in our journey.
We became entangled in briers, and vines, and mats
of bushes, from which the greatest exertions were
necessary to disengage ourselves.

It was so dark, that we could not see the fallen
trees; and, missing these, fell into quagmires, and
sloughs of mud and water, into which we sunk up to
the arm-pits, and from which we were able to extricate
ourselves, only by seizing upon the hanging branches
of the surrounding trees. After struggling in this
half-drowned condition, for at least a quarter of an
hour, we reached a small dry spot, where the gentlemen
again held a council, as to ulterior measures.
They called to those left on the shore, to know if we
were proceeding toward the pine trees; but received
for answer that the pines were invisible, and they knew
not whether we were right or wrong. In this state of
uncertainty, it was thought most prudent to wait the
coming of day, in our present resting-place.

The air was frosty, and in our wet clothes, loaded
as we were with mud, it may be imagined that our
feelings were not pleasant; and when the day broke,
it brought us but little relief, for we found, as soon as
it was light enough to enable us to see around, that
we were on one of those insulated dry spots, called
“tussocks” by the people of the South. These tussocks
are formed by clusters of small trees, which, taking root
in the mud, are, in process of time, surrounded by long
grass, which, entwining its roots with those of the trees,
overspread and cover the surface of the muddy foundation,
by which the superstructure is supported. These
tussocks are often several yards in diameter. That
upon which we now were, stood in the midst of a great
miry pool, into which we were again obliged to launch
ourselves, and struggle onward for a distance of ten
yards, before we reached the line of some fallen and
decaying trees.

It was now broad daylight, and we saw the pine
trees, at the distance of about a hundred yards from
us; but even with the assistance of the light, we had
great difficulty in reaching them, - to do which we
were compelled to travel at least a quarter of a mile
by the angles and curves of the fallen timber, upon
which alone we could walk; this part of the swamp
being a vast half-fluid bog.

It was sunrise when we reached the pines, which we
found standing upon a small islet of firm ground, containing,
as well as I could judge, about half an acre,
covered with a heavy growth of white maples, swamp
oaks, a few large pines, and a vast mat of swamp laurel,
called in the South ivy. I had no doubt that
the object of our search was somewhere on this little
island; but small as it was, it was no trifling affair
to give every part of it a minute examination, for the
stems and branches of the ivy were so minutely interwoven
with each other, and spread along the ground
in so many curves and crossings, that it was impossible
to proceed a single rod without lying down and
creeping along the earth.

The gentlemen agreed, that if any one discovered
the young lady, he should immediately call to the
others; and we all entered the thicket. I, however,
turned along the edge of the island, with the intention
of making its circuit, for the purpose of tracing,
if possible, the footsteps of those who had passed
between it and the main shore. I made my way more
than half round the island, without much difficulty,
and without discovering any signs of persons having
been here before me; but in crossing the trunk of a
large tree which had fallen, and the top of which
extended far into the ivy, I perceived some stains of
mud on the bark of the log. Looking into the swamp,
I saw that the root of this tree was connected with
other fallen timber, extending beyond the reach of my
vision, which was obstructed by the bramble of the
swamp, and the numerous evergreens growing here
I now advanced along the trunk of the tree until I
reached its topmost branches, and here discovered
evident signs of a small trail, leading into the thicket
of ivy. Creeping along and following this trail by the
small bearberry bushes that had been trampled down
and had not again risen to an erect position, I was led
almost across the island, and found that the small
bushes were discomposed quite up to the edge of a
vast heap of the branches of evergreen trees, produced
by the falling of several large juniper cypress trees,
which grew in the swamp in a cluster, and having
been blown down, had fallen with their tops athwart
each other, and upon the almost impervious mat of
ivies, with which the surface of the island was coated
over.

I stood and looked at this mass of entangled green
bush, but could not perceive the slightest marks of
any entrance into its labyrinths; nor did it seem
possible for any creature, larger than a squirrel, to
penetrate it. It now for the first time struck me as a
great oversight in the gentlemen, that they had not
compelled the mulatto, David, to describe the place
where they had concealed the lady; and, as the forest
was so dense that no communication could be had
with the shore, either by word or signs, we could not
now procure any information on this subject. I therefore
called to the gentlemen, who were on the island
with me, and desired them to come to me without
delay.

Small as this island was, it was after the lapse of
many minutes that the overseer and the other gentlemen
arrived where I stood; and when they came,
they would have been the subjects of mirthful emotions,
had not the tragic circumstances in which I was
placed, banished from my heart every feeling but that
of the most profound melancholy.

When the gentlemen had assembled, I informed
them of signs of footsteps that I had traced from the
other side of the island; and told them that I believed
the young lady lay somewhere under the heap
of brushwood before us. This opinion obtained but
little credit, because there was no opening in the brush
by which any one could enter it; but on going a few
paces round the heap, I perceived a small, snaggy
pole resting on the brush, and nearly concealed by it,
with the lower end stuck in the ground. The branches
had been cut from this pole at the distance of three
or four inches from the main stem, which made it a
tolerable substitute for a ladder. I immediately ascended
the pole, which led me to the top of the pile,
and here I discovered an opening in the brush, between
the forked top of one of the cypress trees, through
which a man might easily pass. Applying my head
to this aperture, I distinctly heard a quick and laborious
breathing, like that of a person in extreme illness;
and again called the gentlemen to follow me.

When they came up the ladder, the breathing was
audible to all; and one of the gentlemen, whom I
now perceived to be the stranger, who was with us in
my master's cellar, when I was bled, slid down into
the dark and narrow passage, without uttering a word.
I confess that some feelings of trepidation passed
through my nerves when I stood alone; but now that
a leader had preceded me, I followed, and glided
through the smooth and elastic cypress tops, to the
bottom of this vast labyrinth of green boughs.

When I reached the ground, I found myself in contact
with the gentleman who was in advance of me,
and near one end of a large concave, oblong, open
space, formed by the branches of the trees, having
been supported and kept above the ground, partly by
a cluster of very large and strong ivies, that grew here,
and partly by a young gum tree, which had been bent
into the form of an arch by the falling timber.

Though we could not see into this leafy cavern from
above, yet when we had been in it a few moments, we
had light enough to see the objects around us with
tolerable clearness; but that which surprised us both
greatly was, that the place was totally silent, and we
could not perceive the appearance of any living thing,
except ourselves.

After we had been here some minutes, our vision
became still more distinct; and I saw, at the other
end of the open space, ashes of wood, and some
extinguished brands, but there was no smoke. Going to
these ashes, and stirring them with a stick, I found
coals of fire carefully covered over, in a hole six or
eight inches deep.

When he saw the fire, the gentleman spoke to me,
and expressed his astonishment that we heard the
breathing no longer; but he had scarcely uttered these
words, when a faint groan, as of a woman in great
pain, was heard to issue apparently from the ground;
but a motion of branches on our right assured me that
the sufferer was concealed there. The gentleman
sprung to the spot, pushed aside the pendant boughs,
stooped low beneath the bent ivies, and came out,
bearing in his hands a delicate female figure. As he
turned round, and exposed her half-closed eye and
white forehead to the light, he exclaimed, “Eternal
God! I Maria, is it you?” He then pressed her to his
bosom, and sunk upon the ground, still holding her
closely in his embrace.

The lady lay motionless in his arms, and I thought
she was dead. Her hair hung matted and dishevelled
from her head; a handkerchief, once white, but now
soiled with dust, and stained with blood, was bound
firmly round her head, covering her mouth and chin,
and was fastened at the back of the neck, by a double
knot, and secured by a ligature of cypress bark.

I knew not whom most to pity - the lady, who now
lay insensible in the arms that still clasped her tenderly;
or the unhappy gentleman, who having cut the
cords from her limbs, and the handkerchief from her
face, now sat and silently gazed upon her death-like
countenance. He uttered not a sigh, and moved not
a joint, but his breast heaved with agony; the sinews
and muscles of his neck rose and fell, like those of a
man in convulsions; all the lineaments of his face
were, alternately, contracted and expanded, as if his
last moments were at hand; whilst great drops of
sweat rolled down his forehead, as though he struggled
against an enemy whose strength was more than human.

Oppressed by the sight of so much wretchedness, I
turned from its contemplation, and called aloud to the
gentlemen without (who had all this time been waiting
to hear from us) to come up the ladder to tho top
of the pile of boughs. The overseer was quickly at the
top of the opening, by which I had descended; and I
now informed him that we had found the lady. He
ordered me to hand her up - and I desired the gentleman
who was with me to permit me to do so, but this
he refused - and mounting the boughs of the fallen
trees, and supporting himself by the strong branches
of the ivies, he quickly reached the place where the
overseer stood.

He even here refused to part from his charge, but
bore her down the ladder alone. He was, however,
obliged to accept aid, in conveying her through the
swamp to the place where we had left the two gentlemen
with the wounded mulatto, whose sufferings, demon
as he was, were sufficient to move the hardest
heart. His right arm and left leg were broken, and
he had lost much blood before we returned from the
island; and as he could not walk, it was necessary to
carry him home. We had not brought any horses, and
until the lady was recovered, no one seemed to think
any more about the mulatto after he was shot down
It was proposed to send for a horse to take David
home; but it was finally agreed that we should leave
him in the woods, where he was, until a man could be
sent for him with a cart. At the time we left him, his groans
and lamentations seemed to excite no sympathy
in the breast of any. More cruel sufferings yet
awaited him.

The lady was carried home in the arms of the
gentlemen; and she did not speak, until after she was
bathed and put to bed in my masters house, as I
afterwards heard. I know she did not speak on the
way. She died on the fourth day after her rescue, and
before her death related the circumstances of her
misfortune, as I was told by a colored woman, who
attended her in her illness, in the following manner:

As she was riding in the dusk of the evening, at a
rapid trot, a few yards behind her brother, a black
man sprang from behind a tree standing close by the
side of the road; seized her by her riding dress, and
dragged her to the ground, but failed to catch the
bridle of the horse, which sprang off at full speed. -
Another negro immediately came to the aid of the
first, and said, “I could not catch him - we must
make haste.” They carried her as fast as they could
go to the place where we found her, when they bound
her hands, feet and mouth, and left her until the next
night; and had left her the second morning, only a
few minutes, when she heard the report of guns. Soon
after this, by great efforts, she extricated one of her
feet from the bark with which she was bound; but
finding herself too weak to stand, she crawled, as far
as she could, under the boughs of the trees, hoping
that when her assassins returned again they would not
be able to find her, and that she might there die alone.

Exhausted by the efforts she had made to remove
herself, she fell into the stupor of sleep, from which
she was aroused by the noise we made when we
descended into the cavern. She then, supposing us to
be her destroyers returned again, lay still, and breathed
as softly as possible, to prevent us from hearing her;
but when she heard the voice of the gentleman who
was with me, the tones of which were familiar to her,
she groaned and moved her feet, to let us know where
she was. This exertion, and the idea of her horrid
condition, overcame the strength of her nerves; and
when her deliverer raised her from the ground she had
swooned, and was unconscious of all things.

We had no sooner arrived at the house, than inquiry
was made for Hardy; but it was ascertained in the
kitchen, that he had not been seen since the previous
evening, at night-fall, when he had left the kitchen for
the purpose of going to sleep at the stable with David,
as he had told one of the black women; and preparation
was immediately made to go in pursuit of him.

For this purpose all the gentlemen present equipped
themselves with pistols, fowling pieces, and horns -
such as are used by fox hunters. Messengers were
despatched round the country, to give notice to all the
planters, within the distance of many miles, of the
crime that had been committed, and of the escape of
one of its perpetrators, with a request to them to come
without delay, and join in the pursuit, intended to be
given. Those who had dogs, trained to chase thieves,
were desired to bring them; and a gentleman who
lived twelve miles off, and who owned a blood-hound,
was sent for, and requested to come with his dog, in
all haste.

In consequence, I suppose, of the information I had
given, I was permitted to be present at these deliberations,
and though my advice was not asked, I was
often interrogated, concerning my knowledge of the
affair. Some proposed to go at once, with dogs and
horses, into the woods, and traverse the swamp and
thickets, for the purpose of rousing Hardy from the
place of concealment he might have chosen; but the
opinion of the overseer prevailed, who thought, that
from the intimate knowledge possessed by him, of all
the swamps and coverts in the neighborhood, there
would be little hope of discovering him in this manner
The overseer advised them to wait the coming of
the gentleman with his blood-hound, before they entered
the woods; for the reason, that if the blood hound
could be made to take the trail, he would certainly find
his game, before he quit it, if not thrown off the scent
by the men, horses, and dogs crossing his course; but
if the blood hound could not take the scent, they might
then adopt the proposed plan of pursuit, with as much
success as at present. This counsel being adopted, the
horses were ordered into the stable; and the gentlemen
entered the house to take their breakfast, and
wait the arrival of the blood hound.

Nothing was said of the mulatto, David, who seemed
to be forgotten - not a word being spoken by any one
of bringing him from the woods. I knew that he was
suffering the most agonizing pains, and great as were
his crimes, his groans and cries of anguish still seemed
to echo in my ears; but I was afraid to make any application
in his behalf, lest, even yet, I might be suspected
of some participation in his offences; for I
knew that the most horrid punishments were often
inflicted upon slaves merely on suspicion.

As the morning advanced, the number of men and
horses in front of my master's mansion increased; and
before ten o'clock I think there were, at least, fifty of
each - the horses standing hitched and the men conversing
in groups without, or assembled together within
the house.

At length the owner of the blood hound came, bringing
with him his dog, in a chaise, drawn by one horse.
The harness was removed from the horse, its place
supplied by a saddle and bridle, and the whole party
set off for the woods. As they rode away, my master,
who was one of the company, told me to follow them;
but we had proceeded only a little distance, when the
gentlemen stopped, and my master, after speaking with
the owner of the dog, told the overseer to go back to
the house, and get some piece of the clothes of Hardy,
that had been worn by him lately. The overseer returned,
and we all proceeded forward to the place where
David lay.

We found him where we had left him, greatly weakened
by the loss of blood, and complaining that the
cold air caused his wounds to smart intolerably. When
I came near him, he looked at me and told me I had
betrayed him. None of the gentlemen seemed at all
moved by his sufferings, and when any of them spoke
to him it was with derision, and every epithet of scorn
and contumely. As it was apparent that he could not
escape, no one proposed to remove him to a place of
greater safety; but several of the horsemen, as they
passed, lashed him with the thongs of their whips;
but I do not believe he felt these blows - the pain he
endured from his wounds being so great as to drown
the sensation of such minor afflictions.

The day had already become warm, although the
night had been cold; the sun shone with great clearness,
and many carrion crows, attracted by the scent
of blood, were perched upon the trees near where we
now were.

When the overseer came up with us, he brought an
old blanket, in which Hardy had slept for some time,
and handed it to the owner of the dog; who, having
first caused the hound to smell of the blanket, untied
the cord in which he had been led, and turned him
into the woods. The dog went from us fifty or sixty
yards, in a right line, then made a circle around us,
again commenced his circular movement, and pursued
it nearly half round. Then he dropped his nose to
the ground, snuffed the tainted surface, and moved off
through the wood slowly, almost touching the earth
with his nose. The owner of the dog and twelve or
fifteen others followed him, whilst the residue of the
party dispersed themselves along the edge of the
swamp, and the overseer ordered me to stay and watch
the horses of those who dismounted, going himself on
foot in the pursuit.

When the gentlemen were all gone out of sight, I
went to David, who lay all this time within my view,
for the purpose of asking him if I could render him
any assistance. He begged me to bring him some water,
as he was dying of thirst, no less than with the
pain of his wounds. One of the horsemen had left a
large tin horn hanging on his saddle; this I took, and
stopping the small end closely with leaves, filled it
with water from the swamp, and gave it to the wounded
man, who drank it, and then turning his head towards
me, said: - “Hardy and I had laid a plan to
have this thing brought upon you, and to have you
hung for it - but you have escaped.” He then asked
me if they intended to leave him to die in the woods,
or to take him home and hang him. I told him I had
heard them talk of taking him home in a cart, but
what was to be done with him I did not know. I felt
a horror of the crimes committed by this man; was
pained by the sight of his sufferings, and being unable
to relieve the one, or to forgive the other, went to a
place where I could neither see nor hear him, and sat
down to await the return of those who had gone
in the pursuit of Hardy.

In the circumstances which surrounded me, it
cannot be supposed that my feelings were pleasant,
or that time moved very fleetly; but painful as my
situation was, I was obliged to bear it for many hours.
From the time the gentlemen left me, I neither saw
nor heard them, until late in the afternoon, when five
or six of them returned, having lost their companions
in the woods.

Toward sundown, I heard a great noise of horns
blown, and of men shouting at a distance in the forest;
and soon after, my master, the owner of the blood
hound, and many others returned, bringing with them
Hardy, whom the hound had followed ten or twelve
miles through the swamps and thickets; had at last
caught him, and would soon have killed him, had he
not been compelled to relinquish his prey. When the
party had all returned, a kind of court was held in
the woods, where we then were, for the purpose of
determining what punishment should be inflicted upon
Hardy and David. All agreed at once, that an example
of the most terrific character ought to be made
of such atrocious villains, and that it would defeat the
ends of justice to deliver these fellows up to the civil
authority, to be hanged like common murderers. The
next measure was to settle upon the kind of punishment
to be inflicted upon them, and the manner of
executing the sentence.

Hardy was, all this time, sitting on the ground
covered with blood, and yet bleeding profusely, in
hearing of his inexorable judges. The dog had mangled
both his arms and hands in a shocking manner;
torn a large piece of flesh entirely away from one side of
his breast, and sunk his fangs deep in the side of
his neck. No other human creature that I have ever
seen presented a more deplorable spectacle of mingled
crime and cruelty.

It was now growing late, and the fate of these miserable
men was to be decided before the company separated
to go to their several homes. One proposed to
burn them, another to flay them alive, and a third to
starve them to death, and many other modes of slowly
and tormentingly extinguishing life were named; but
that which was finally adopted was, of all others, the
most horrible. The wretches were unanimously sentenced
to be stripped naked, and bound down securely
upon their backs, on the naked earth, in sight of each
other; to have their mouths closely covered with bandages,
to prevent them from making a noise to frighten
away the birds, and in this manner to be left to be
devoured alive by the carrion crows and buzzards,
which swarm in every part of South Carolina.

The sentence was instantly carried into effect, so
far as its execution depended on us. Hardy and his
companion were divested of their clothes, stretched
upon their backs on the ground; their mouths bandaged
with handkerchiefs - their limbs extended -
and these, together with their necks, being crossed by
numerous poles, were kept close to the earth by forked
sticks driven into the ground, so as to prevent the
possibility of moving any part of their persons; and
in this manner these wicked men were left to be torn
in pieces by birds of prey. The buzzards and carrion
crows, always attack dead bodies by pulling out and
consuming the eyes first. They then tear open
the bowels, and feed upon the intestines.

We returned to my master's plantation, and I did
not see this place again until the next Sunday, when
several of my fellow slaves went with me to see the
remains of the dead, but we found only their bones.
Great flocks of buzzards and carrion crows were assembled
in the trees, giving a dismal aspect to the woods;
and I hastened to abandon a place fraught with so
many afflicting recollections.

The lady, who had been the innocent sacrifice of
the brutality of the men, whose bones I had seen
bleaching in the sun, had died on Saturday evening,
and her corpse was buried on Monday, in a grave-yard
on my master's plantation. I have never seen a large
cotton plantation, in Carolina, without its burying
ground. This burying ground is not only the place
of sepulture of the family, who are the proprietors of
the estate, but also of many other persons who have
lived in the neighborhood. Half an acre, or an acre
of ground, is appropriated as a grave-yard, on one side
of which the proprietors of the estate, from age to age,
are buried; whilst the other parts of the ground are
open to strangers, poor people of their vicinity, and,
in general, to all who choose to inter their dead within
its boundaries. This custom prevails as far north as
Maryland; and it seems to me to be much more consonant
to the feelings of solitude and tender recollections,
which we always associate with the memory of
departed friends, than the practice of promiscuous
interment in a church-yard, where all idea of seclusion
is banished, by the last home of the dead being thrown
open to the rude intrusions of strangers; where the
sanctity of the sepulchre is treated as a common, and
where the grave itself is, in a few years, torn up, or
covered over, to form a temporary resting-place
for some new tenant.

The family of the deceased lady, though not very
wealthy, was amongst the most ancient and respectable
in this part of the country; and, on Sunday, whilst
the dead body lay in my master's house, there was a
continual influx and efflux of visiters, in carriages, on
horse-back, and on foot. The house was open to all
who chose to come; and the best wines, cakes, sweetmeats
and fruits, were handed about to the company
by the servants; though I observed that none remained
for dinner, except the relations of the deceased,
those of my master's family, and the young gentleman
who was with me on the island. The visiters remained
but a short time when they came, and were nearly
all in mourning. This was the first time that I had
seen a large number of the fashionable people of Carolina
assembled together, and their appearance impressed
me with an opinion favorable to their character.
I had never seen an equal number of people anywhere,
whose deportment was more orderly and decorous, nor
whose feelings seemed to be more in accordance with
the solemnity of the event, which had brought them
together.

I had been ordered by the overseer to remain at the
great house until the afternoon, for the purpose, as I
afterwards learned, of being seen by those who came
to see the corspe; and many of the ladies and gentlemen
inquired for me, and when I was pointed out to
them, commended my conduct and fidelity, in discovering
the authors of the murder - condoled with me for
having suffered innocently, and several gave me money.
One old lady, who came in a pretty carriage,
drawn by two black horses, gave me a dollar.

On Monday the funeral took place, and several
hundred persons followed the corpse to the grave, over
which a minister delivered a short sermon. The young
gentleman who was with me when we found the
deceased on the island, walked with her mother to the
grave-yard, and the little brother followed, with a
younger sister.

After the interment, wines and refreshments were
handed round to the whole assembly, and at least a
hundred persons remained for dinner with my master's
family. At four o'clock in the afternoon the carriages
and horses were ordered to the door of the court-yard
of the house, and the company retired. At sundown,
the plantation was as quiet as if its peace had never
been disturbed.

CHAPTER X.

I HAVE before observed that the negroes of the
cotton plantations are exceedingly superstitious; and
they are indeed prone, beyond all other people that I
have ever known, to believe in ghosts, and the existence
of an infinite number of supernatural agents. No
story of a miraculous character can be too absurd to
obtain credit with them; and a narrative is not the
less eagerly listened to, nor the more cautiously received,
because it is impossible in its circumstances.
Within a few weeks after the deaths of the two malefactors,
to whose horrible crimes were awarded equally
horrible punishments, the forest that had been the
scene of these bloody deeds was reported and believed
to be visited at night by beings of unearthly make,
whose groans and death-struggles were heard in the
darkest recesses of the woods, amidst the flapping of
the wings of vultures, the fluttering of carrion crows,
and the dismal croaking of ravens. In the midst of
this nocturnal din, the noise caused by the tearing of
the flesh from the bones was heard, and the panting
breath of the agonized sufferer, quivering under the
beaks of his tormentors, as they consumed his vitals,
floated audibly upon the evening breeze.

The murdered lady was also seen walking by moonlight,
near the spot where she had been dragged from
her horse, wrapped in a blood-stained mantle, overhung
with gory and dishevelled locks.

The little island in the swamp was said to present
spectacles too horrid for human eyes to look upon, and
sounds were heard to issue from it which no human
ear could bear. Terrific and ghastly fires were seen
to burst up, at midnight, amongst the evergreens that
clad this lonely spot, emitting scents too suffocating
and sickly to be endured; whilst demoniac yells,
shouts of despair and groans of agony, mingled their
echos in the solitude of the woods.

Whilst I remained in this neighborhood, no colored
person ever traveled this road alone after night-fall;
and many white men would have ridden ten miles
round the country to avoid the passage of the ridge
road, after dark. Generations must pass away before
the tradition of this place will be forgotten; and many
a year will open and close, before the last face will be
pale, or the last heart beat, as the twilight traveler
skirts the borders of the Murderer's Swamp.

We had allowances of meat distributed to all the
people twice this fall - once when we had finished the
saving the fodder, and again soon after the murder of
the young lady. The first time we had beef, such as
I had driven from the woods when I went to the alligator
pond; but now we had two hogs given to us,
which weighed, one a hundred and thirty, and the
other a hundred and fifty-six pounds. This was very
good pork, and I received a pound and a quarter as
my share of it. This was the first pork that I had
tasted in Carolina, and it afforded a real feast. We
had, in our family, full seven pounds of good fat meat;
and as we now had plenty of sweet potatoes, both in
our gardens and in our weekly allowance, we had on
the Sunday following the funeral, as good a dinner of
stewed pork and potatoes as could have been found in
all Carolina. We did not eat all our meat on Sunday,
but kept part of it until Tuesday, when we warmed it
in a pot, with an addition of parsley and other herbs,
and had another very comfortable meal.

I had, by this time, become in some measure acquainted
with the country, and began to lay and execute
plans to procure supplies of such things as were
not allowed me by my master. I understood various
methods of entrapping rackoons, and other wild animals
that abounded in the large swamps of this country;
and besides the skins, which were worth something
for their furs, I generally procured as many
rackoons, opossums, and rabbits, as afforded us two or
three meals in a week. The woman with whom I lived,
understood the way of dressing an opossum, and I was
careful to provide one for our Sunday dinner every
week, so long as these animals continued fat and in
good condition.

All the people on the plantation did not live as well
as our family did, for many of the men did not understand
trapping game, and others were too indolent to
go far enough from home to find good places for setting
their traps. My principal trapping ground was three
miles from home, and I went three times a week, always
after night, to bring home my game, and keep
my traps in good order. Many of the families in the
quarter caught no game, and had no meat, except that
which we received from the overseer, which averaged
about six or seven meals in the, year.

Lydia, the woman whom I have mentioned heretofore,
was one of the women whose husbands procured
little or nothing for the sustenance of their families,
and I often gave her a quarter of a rackoon or a small
opossum, for which she appeared very thankful.
Her health was not good - she had a bad cough, and often
told me she was feverish and restless at night. It
appeared clear to me that this woman's constitution
was broken by hardships and sufferings, and that she
could not live long in her present mode of existence.
Her husband, a native of a country far in the interior
of Africa, said he had been a priest in his own nation,
and had never been taught to do any kind of labor,
being supported by the contributions of the public;
and he now maintained, as far as he could, the same
kind of lazy indignity, that he had enjoyed at home. He
was compelled by the overseer to work, with the other
hands, in the field, but as soon as he had come into
his cabin, he took his seat, and refused to give his wife
the least assistance in doing any thing. She was consequently
obliged to do the little work that it was necessary
to perform in the cabin; and also to bear all
the labor of weeding and cultivating the family patch
or garden. The husband was a morose, sullen man,
and said he formerly had ten wives in his own country,
who all had to work for him, and wait upon him; and
he thought himself badly off here, in having but one
woman to do any thing for him. This man was very
irritable, and often beat and otherwise maltreated his
wife, on the slightest provocation, and the overseer refused
to protect her, on the ground, that he never interfered
in the family quarrels of the black people. I
pitied this woman greatly, but as it was not in my
power to remove her from the presence and authority
of her husband, I thought it prudent not to say nor do
any thing to provoke him further against her. As the
winter approached, and the autumnal rains set in, she
was frequently exposed in the field, and was wet for
several hours together; this, joined to the want of
warm and comfortable woollen clothes, caused her to
contract colds, and hoarseness, which increased the
severity of her cough. A few days before Christmas,
her child died, after an illness of only three days. I
assisted her and her husband to inter the infant - which
was a little boy - and its father buried with it a small
bow and several arrows; a little bag of parched meal;
a miniature canoe, about a foot long, and a little paddle,
(with which he said it would cross the ocean to
his own country) a small stick, with an iron nail, sharpened,
and fastened into one end of it; and a piece of
white muslin, with several curious and strange figures
painted on it in blue and red, by which, he said, his
relations and countrymen would know the infant to be
his son, and would receive it accordingly, on its arrival
amongst them.

Cruel as this man was to his wife, I could not but
respect the sentiments which inspired his affection for
his child; though it was the affection of a barbarian.
He cut a lock of hair from his head, threw it upon the
dead infant, and closed the grave with his own hands.
He then told us the God of his country was looking at
him, and was pleased with what he ha done. Thus
ended the funeral service.

As we returned home, Lydia told me she was rejoiced
that her child was dead, and out of a world in
which slavery and wretchedness must have been its
only portion. I am now, said she, ready to follow my
child, and the sooner I go the better for me. She
went with us to the field until the month of January,
when, as we were returning from our work, one stormy
and wet evening, she told me she should never pick
any more cotton - that her strength was gone, and she
could work no more. When we assembled, at the
blowing of the horn, on the following morning, Lydia
did not appear. The overseer, who had always appeared
to dislike this woman, when he missed her, swore very
angrily, and said he supposed she was pretending
to be sick, but if she was he would soon cure
her. He then stepped into his house and took some
copperas from a little bag, and mixed it with water.
I followed him to Lydia's cabin, where he compelled
her to drink this solution of copperas. It caused her
to vomit violently, and made her exceedingly sick. I
think to this day, that this act of the overseer was the
most inhuman of all those that I have seen perpetrated
upon defenceless slaves.

Lydia was removed that same day to the sick room,
in a state of extreme debility and exhaustion. When
she left this room again she was a corpse. Her disease
was a consumption of the lungs, which terminated
her life early in March. I assisted in carrying her to
the grave, which I closed upon her, and covered with
green turf. She sleeps by the side of her infant, in a
corner of the negro grave-yard of this plantation.
Death was to her a welcome messenger, who came to
remove her from toil that she could not support, and
from misery that she could not sustain.

Christmas approached, and we all expected two or
three holidays - but we were disappointed, as only
one was all that was allotted to us.

I went to the field and picked cotton all day, for
which I was paid by the overseer, and at night I had
a good dinner of stewed pork and sweet potatoes.
Such were the beginning and end of my first Christmas
on a cotton plantation. We went to work as
usual the next morning, and continued our labor
through the week, as if Christmas had been stricken
from the calendar. I had already saved and laid by a
little more than ten dollars in money, but part of it
had been given to me at the funeral. I was now much
in want of clothes, none having been given me since I
came here. I had, at the commencement of the cold
weather, cut up my blanket, and, with the aid of
Lydia, who was a good seamstress, converted it
into a pair of trousers, and a long roundabout jacket;
but this deprived me of my bed, which was imperfectly
supplied by mats, which I mad of rushes. The mats
were very comfortable things to lie upon, but they
were by no means equal to blankets for covering.

A report had been current among us for some time,
that there would be a distribution of clothes to the
people at New-Year's day; but how much, or what
kind of clothes we were to get no one pretended to
know except that we were to get shoes, in conformity
to a long-established rule of this plantation. From
Christmas to New-Year appeared a long week to me,
and I have no doubt that it appeared yet longer to
some of my fellow slaves, most of whom were entirely
barefoot. I had made moccasins for myself, of the
skins of squirrels that I had caught in my traps, and
by this means protected my feet from the frost, which
was sometimes very heavy and sharp in the morning.

On the first day of January, when we met at the
blowing of the morning horn, the overseer told us we
must all proceed to the great house, where we were to
receive our winter clothes; and surely, no order was
ever more willingly obeyed. When we arrived at the
house our master was up, and we were all called into
the great court yard in front of the dwelling. The
overseer now told us that shoes would be given to all
those who were able to go to the field to pick cotton.
This deprived of shoes the children, and several old
persons, whose eye-sight was not sufficiently clear to
enable them to pick cotton. A new blanket was then
given to every one above seven years of age - children
under seven received no blanket, being left to be provided
for by their parents. Children of this age and
under, go entirely naked, in the day-time, and sleep
with their mothers at night, or are wrapped up together
in such bedding as the mother may possess.

It may well be supposed, that in our society, although
we were all slaves, and all nominally in a condition
of the most perfect equality, yet there was in
fact a very great difference in the manner of living, in
the several families. Indeed, I doubt if there is as
great a diversity in the modes of life, in the several
families of any white village in New York or Pennsylvania,
containing a population of three hundred
persons, as there was in the several households of our
quarter. This may be illustrated by the following
circumstance: Before I came to reside in the family
with whom I lived at this time, they seldom tasted
animal food, or even fish, except on meat-days, as
they were called; that is, when meat was given to
the people by the overseer, under the orders of our
master. The head of the family was a very quiet,
worthy man; but slothful and inactive in his habits.
When he had come from the field at night, he seldom
thought of leaving the cabin again before morning
He would, and did, make baskets and mats, and earned
some money by these means; he also did his regular
day's work on Sunday; but all his acquirements
were not sufficient to enable him to provide any kind
of meat for his family. All that his wife and children
could do, was to provide him with work at his baskets
and mats; and they lived even then better than some
of their neighbors. After I came among them and
had acquired some knowledge of the surrounding
country, I made as many baskets and mats as he did,
and took time to go twice a week to look at all my
traps.

As the winter passed away and spring approached,
the proceeds of my hunting began to diminish. The
game became scarce, and both rackoons and opossums
grew poor and worthless. It was necessary for me to
discover some new mode of improving the allowance
allotted to me by the overseer. I had all my life been
accustomed to fishing in Maryland, and I now resolved
to resort to the water for a living; the land having
failed to furnish me a comfortable subsistence. With
these views, I set out one Sunday morning, early in
February, and went to the river at a distance of three
miles from home. From the appearance of the stream
I felt confident that it must contain many fish; and I
went immediately to work to make a weir. With the
help of an axe that I had with me, I had finished before
night the frame-work of a weir of pine sticks,
lashed together with white oak splits. I had no
canoe, but made a raft of dry logs, upon which I went
to a suitable place in the river and set my weir. I
afterwards made a small net of twine that I bought at
the store; and on next Thursday night I took as
many fish from my weir as filled a half bushel measure.
This was a real treasure - it was the most fortunate
circumstance that had happened with me since
I came to the country.

I was enabled to show my generosity, but, like all
mankind, even in my liberality, I kept myself in mind.
I gave a large fish to the overseer, and took three more
to the great house. These were the first fresh fish that
had been in the family this season; and I was much
praised by my master and young mistresses, for my
skill and success in fishing; but this was all the
advantage I received from this effort to court the favor
of the great: - I did not even get a dram. The part
I had performed in the detection of the murderers of
the young lady was forgotten, or at least not mentioned
now. I went away from the house not only disappointed
but chagrined, and thought with myself that
if my master and young mistresses had nothing but
words to give me for my fish, we should not carry on
a very large traffic.

On next Sunday morning, a black boy came from
the house, and told me that our master wished to see
me. This summons was not to be disobeyed. When
I returned to the mansion, I went round to the kitchen,
and sent word by one of the house-slaves that I had
come. The servant returned and told me, that I was
to stay in the kitchen and get my breakfast; and
after that to come into the house. A very good breakfast
was sent to me from my master's table, after the
family had finished their morning meal; and when I
had done with my repast I went into the parlor. I
was received with great affability by my master, who
told me he had sent for me to know if I had been
accustomed to fish in the place I had come from. I
informed him that I had been employed at a fishery on
the Patuxent, every spring, for several years; and
that I thought I understood fishing with a seine, as
well as most people. He then asked me if I could
knit a seine, to which I replied in the affirmative.
After some other questions, he told me that as the
picking of cotton was nearly over for this season, and
the fields must soon be ploughed up for a new crop,
he had a thought of having a seine made, and of
placing me at the head of a fishing party, for the purpose
of trying to take a supply of fish for his hands.
No communication could have been more unexpected
than this was, and it was almost as pleasing to me as
it was unexpected by me. I now began to hope that
there would be some respite from the labors of the
cotton field, and that I should not be doomed to drag
out a dull and monotonous existence, within the confines
of the enclosures of the plantation.

In Maryland, the fishing season was always one of
hard labor, it is true, but also a time of joy and hilarity.
We then had, throughout the time of fishing,
plenty of bread, and at least bacon enough to fry our
fish with. We had also a daily allowance of whisky,
or brandy, and we always considered ourselves fortunate
when we left the farm to go to the fishery.

A few days after this, I was again sent for by my
master, who told me that he had bought twine and
ropes for a seine, and that I must set to work and knit
it as quickly as possible; that as he did not wish the
twine to be taken to the quarter, I must remain with
the servants in the kitchen, and live with them while
employed in constructing the seine. I was assisted in
making the seine by a black boy, whom I had taught
to work with me; and by the end of two weeks we
had finished our job.

While at work on this seine, I lived rather better
than I had formerly done when residing at the quarter.
We received among us - twelve in number, including
the people who worked in the garden - the refuse of
our master's table. In this way we procured a little
cold meat every day; and when there were many
strangers visiting the family, we sometimes procured
considerable quantities of cold and broken meats.

My new employment afforded me a better opportunity
than I had hitherto possessed of making correct
observations upon the domestic economy of my master's
household, and of learning the habits and modes
of life of the persons who composed it. On a great
cotton plantation, such as this of my master's, the
field hands, who live in the quarter, are removed so
far from the domestic circle of their master's family,
by their servile condition and the nature of their employment,
that they know but little more of the transactions
within the walls of the great house than if they
lived ten miles off. Many a slave has been born, lived
to old age, and died on a plantation, without ever
having been within the walls of his master's domicile.

My master was a widower; and his house was in
charge of his sister, a maiden lady, apparently of
fifty-five or sixty. He had six children, three sons and
three daughters, and all unmarried; but only one of
the sons was at home, at the time I came upon the
estate; the other two were in some of the northern
cities - the one studying medicine, and the other at
college. At the time of knitting the twine, these
young gentlemen had returned on a visit to their relations,
and all the brothers and sisters were now on the
place. The young ladies were all grown up, and
marriageable; their father was known to be a man of
great wealth, and the girls were reputed very pretty in
Carolina; one of them, the second of the three, was
esteemed a great beauty.

The reader might deem my young mistress' pretty
face and graceful person altogether impertinent to the
narrative of my own life; but they had a most material
influence upon my fortunes, and changed the whole
tenor of my existence. Had she been less beautiful,
or of a temper less romantic and adventurous, I should
still have been a slave in South Carolina, if yet alive,
and the world would have been saved the labor of
perusing these pages.

Any one at all acquainted with southern manners,
will at once see that my master's house possessed
attractions which would not fail to draw within it
numerous visiters; and that the head of such a family as
dwelt under its roof was not likely to be without friends.

I had not been at work upon the seine a week before
I discovered, by listening to the conversation of
my master and the other members of the family, that
they prided themselves not a little upon the antiquity
of their house, and the long practice of a generous
hospitality to strangers, and to all respectable people
who chose to visit their homestead. All circumstances
seemed to conspire to render this house one of the chief
seats of the fashion, the beauty, the wit, and the gallantry
of South Carolina. Scarcely an evening came
but it brought a carriage, and ladies and gentlemen
and their servants; and every day brought dashing
young planters, mounted on horseback, to dine with
the family; but Sunday was the day of the week on
which the house received the greatest accession of
company. My master and family were members of the
Episcopal Church, and attended service every Sunday,
when the weather was fine, at a church eight miles
distant. Each of my young masters and mistresses
had a saddle-horse, and in pleasant weather they
frequently all went to church on horseback, leaving my
old master and mistress to occupy the family carriage
alone. I have seen fifteen or twenty young people
come to my master's for dinner on Sunday from church;
and very often the parson, a young man of handsome
appearance, was among them. I had observed these
things long before, but now I had come to live at the
house, and became more familiar with them. Three
Sundays intervened while I was at work upon the seine,
and on each of these Sundays more than twenty persons,
besides the family, dined at my master's. During
these three weeks, my young masters were absent far
the greater part of the time; but I observed that they
generally came home on Sunday for dinner. My young
mistresses were not from home much, and I believe
they never left the plantation unless either their father
or some one of their brothers was with them. Dinner
parties were frequent in my master's house;
and on these occasions of festivity, a black man, who
belonged to a neighboring estate, and who played
the violin, was sent for. I observed that whenever
this man was sent for, he came, and sometimes
even came before night, which appeared a little singular
to me, as I knew the difficulty that colored people
had to encounter in leaving the estate to which they
were attached.

CHAPTER XI.

EARLY in March, my seine being now completed,
my master told me I must take with me three other
black men, and go to the river to clear out a fishery.
This task was a disagreeable job, for it was nothing less
than dragging out of the river all the old trees and
brush that had sunk to the bottom, within the limits
of our intended fishing ground.

My master's eldest son had been down the river, and
had purchased two boats, to be used at the fishery;
but when I saw them, I declared them to be totally unfit
for the purpose. They were old batteaux, and so
leaky that they would not have supported the weight
of a seine and the men necessary to lay it out. I
advised the building of two good canoes from some of
the large yellow pines in the woods. My advice was
accepted, and together with five other hands, I went
to work at the canoes, which we completed in less than
a week.

So far things went pretty well, and I flattered myself
that I should become the head man at this new
fishery, and have the command of the other hands. I
also expected that I should be able to gain some advantage
to myself, by disposing of a part of the small fish
that might be taken at the fishery. I reckoned without
my host.

My master had only purchased this place a short
time before he bought me. Before that time he did
not own any place on the river, fit for the establishment
of a fishery. His lands adjoined the river for
more than a mile in extent, along its margin; but an
impassable morass separated the channel of the river,
from the firm ground, all along his lines. He had
cleared the highest parts of this morass, or swamp, and
had here made his rice fields; but he was as entirely
cut off from the river, as if an ocean had separated it
from him.

On the day that we launched the canoes into the
river, and while we were engaged in removing some
snags and old trees that had stuck in the mud, near
the shore, an ill-looking stranger came to us, and told
us that our master had sent him to take charge of the
fishery, and superintend all the work that was to be
done at it. This man, by his contract with my master,
was to receive a part of all the fish caught, in lieu of
wages; and was invested with the same authority over
us that was exercised by the overseer in the cotton field.

I soon found that I had cause to regret my removal
from the plantation. It was found quite impossible
to remove the old logs, and other rubbish from the
bottom of the river, without going into the water, and
wrenching them from their places with long handspikes.
In performing this work we were obliged to
wade up to our shoulders, and often to dip our very
heads under water, in raising the sunken timber.
However, within less than a week, we had cleared the
ground, and now began to haul our seine. At first,
we caught nothing but common river fish; but after two
or three days, we began to take shad. Of the common
fish, such as pike, perch, suckers, and others, we
had the liberty of keeping as many as we could eat;
but the misfortune was, that we had no pork, or fat
of any kind, to fry them with; and for several days
we contented ourselves with boiling them on the coals,
and eating them with our corn bread and sweet potatoes.
We could have lived well, if we had been permitted
to boil the shad on the coals, and eat them, for
a fat shad will dress itself in being broiled, and is very
good, without any oily substance added to it.

All the shad that we caught, were carefully taken
away by a black man, who came three times every day
to the fishery, with a cart.

The master of the fishery had a family that lived
several miles up the river. In the summer time, he
fished with hooks, and small nets, when not engaged
in running turpentine, in the pine woods. In the
winter he went back into the pine forest, and made tar
of the dead pine trees; but returned to the river at
the opening of the spring, to take advantage of the
shad fishery. He was supposed to he one of the most
skillful fishermen on the Congrace river, and my master
employed him to superintend his new fishery, under
an expectation, I presume, that as he was to get
a tenth part of all the fish that might be caught, he
would make the most of his situation. My master had
not calculated with accuracy the force of habit, nor
the difficulty which men experience, in conducting
very simple affairs, of which they have no practical
knowledge.

The fish-master did very well for the interest of his
employer for a few days; compelling us to work in
hauling the seine, day and night, and scarcely permitting
us to take rest enough to obtain necessary sleep.
We were compelled to work full sixteen hours every
day, including Sunday; for in the fishing season no
respect is paid to Sunday by fishermen anywhere. We
had our usual quantity of bread and potatoes, with
plenty of common fish; but no shad came to our lot,
nor had we anything to fry our fish with A broiled
fresh-water fish is not very good at best, without salt
or oil; and after we had eaten them every day, for a
week, we cared very little for them.

By this time our fish-master began to relax in his
discipline; not that he became more kind to us, or
required us to do less work, but to compel us to work
all night, it was necessary for him to sit up all night
and watch us. This was a degree of toil and privation
to which he could not long submit; and one evening
soon after dark, he called me to him, and told me
that he intended to make me overseer of the fishery
that night; and he had no doubt I would keep the
hands at work, and attend to the business as well
without him as with him. He then went into his
cabin, and went to bed; whilst I went and laid out
the seine, and made a very good haul. We took more
than two hundred shad at this draught; and followed
up our work with great industry all night, only taking
time to eat our accustomed meal at midnight.

Every fisherman knows that the night is the best
time for taking shad; and the little rest that had been
allowed us, since we began to fish, had always been
from eight o'clock in the morning until four in the
afternoon; unless within that period there was an
appearance of a school of fish in the river; when we
had to rise, and lay out the seine, no matter at what
hour of the day. The fish-master had been very
severe with the hands since he came amongst us, and
had made very free use of a long hickory gad that he
sometimes carried about with him; though at times
he would relax his austerity, and talk quite familiarly
with us, - especially with me, whom he perceived to
have some knowledge of the business in which we were
engaged. The truth was, that this man knew nothing
of fishing with a seine, and I had been obliged from
the beginning to direct the operations of laying out
and drawing in the seine; though the master was
always very loud and boisterous in giving his
commands, and directing us in what part of the river
we should let down the seine.

Having never been accustomed to regular work, or
to the pursuit of any constant course of personal
application, the master was incapable of long continued
exertion; and I feel certain that he could not have
been prevailed upon to labor twelve hours each day,
for a year, if in return he had been certain of receiving
ten thousand dollars. Notwithstanding this, he was
capable of rousing himself, and of undergoing any
degree of fatigue or privation for a short time, even for a
few days. He had not been trained to habits of industry,
and could not bear the restraints of uniform labor.

We worked hard all night, the first night of my
superintendence, and when the sun rose the next
morning, the master had not risen from his bed. As it
was now the usual time of dividing the fish, I called to
him to come and see this business fairly done; but as
he did not come down immediately to the landing, I
proceeded to make the division myself, in as equitable
a manner as I could: giving, however, a full share of
large fish to the master. When he came down to us,
and overlooked both the piles of fish - his own and
that of my master - he was so well satisfied with what
I had done, that he said, if he had known that I would
do so well for him, he would not have risen. I was
glad to hear this, as it led me to hope that I should
be able to induce him to stay in his cabin during the
greater part of the time; to do which, I was well
assured, he felt disposed.

When the night came, the master again told me he
should go to bed, not being well, and desired me to
do as I had done the night before. This night we
cooked as many shad as we could all eat; but were
careful to carry, far out into the river the scales and
entrails of the stolen fish. In the morning I made a
division of the fish before I called the master, and
then went and asked him to come and see what I had
done. He was again well pleased, and now proposed
to us all that if we would not let the affair be known
to our master, he would leave us to manage the fishery
at night according to our discretion. To this proposal
we all readily agreed, and I received authority to keep
the other hands at work, until the master would go
and get his breakfast. I had now accomplished the
object that I had held very near my heart ever since
we began to fish at this place.

From this time to the end of the fishing season, we
all lived well, and did not perform more work than we
were able to bear. I was in no fear of being punished
by the fish-master, for he was now at least as much in
my power as I was in his; for if my master had known
the agreement that he had made with us, for the purpose
of enabling himself to sleep all night in his cabin,
he would have been deprived of his situation, and all
the profits of his share of the fishery.

There never can be any affinity of feeling between
master and slave, except in some few isolated cases,
where the master has treated his slave in such a manner
as to have excited in him strong feelings of gratitude;
or where the slave entertains apprehensions,
that by the death of his master, or by being separated
from him in any other way, he may fall under the
power of a more tyrannical ruler, or may in some shape
be worsted by the change. I was never acquainted
with a slave who believed that he violated any rule of
morality by appropriating to himself any thing that
belonged to his master, if it was necessary to his comfort.
The master might call it theft and brand it
with the name of crime; but the slave reasoned differently,
when he took a portion of his master's goods,
to satisfy his hunger, keep himself warm, or to gratify
his passion for luxurious enjoyment.

The slave sees his master residing in a spacious
mansion, riding in a fine carriage, and dressed in costly
clothes, and attributes the possession of all these
enjoyments to his own labor; whilst he who is the cause of
so much gratification and pleasure to another, is himself
deprived of even the necessary accommodations of
human life. Ignorant men do not and cannot reason
logically; and in tracing things from cause to effect,
the slave attributes all that he sees in possession of
his master to his own toil, without taking the trouble
to examine how far the skill, judgment, and economy
of his master may have contributed to the accumulation
of the wealth by which his residence is surrounded.
There is, in fact, a mutual dependence between
the master and his slave. The former could not acquire
any thing without the labor of the latter, and the
latter would always remain in poverty without the
judgment of the former in directing labor to a definite
and profitable result.

After I had obtained the virtual command of the
fishery, I was careful to awaken the master every morning
at sunrise, that he might be present when the
division of the fish was made; and when the morning
cart arrived, that the carter might not report to my
master, that the fish-master was in bed. I had now
become interested in preserving the good opinion of
my master in favor of his agent.

Since my arrival in Carolina I had never enjoyed a
full meal of bacon; and now determined, if possible,
to procure such a supply of that luxury as would enable
me and all my fellow-slaves at the fishery to regale
ourselves at pleasure. At this season of the year boats
frequently passed up the river, laden with merchandise
and goods of various kinds, among which were generally
large quantities of salt, intended for curing fish,
and for other purposes on the plantations. These
boats also carried bacon and salted pork up the river,
for sale; but as they never moved at night, confining
their navigation to day-light, and as none of them had
hitherto stopped near our landing, we had not met
with an opportunity of entering into a traffic with any
of the boat masters. We were not always to be so
unfortunate. One evening, in the second week of the
fishing season, a large keel-boat was seen working up
the river about sundown; and shortly after, came to
for the night, on the opposite side of the river, directly
against our landing. We had at the fishery a small
canoe called a punt, about twelve feet long; and when
we went to lay out the seine, for the first haul after
night, I attached the punt to the side of the canoe,
and when we had finished letting down the seine, I
left the other hands to work it toward the shore and
ran over in the punt to the keel-boat. Upon inquiring
of the captain if he had any bacon that he would
exchange for shad, he said, he had a little; but, as
the risk he would run in dealing with a slave was great,
I must expect to pay him more than the usual price.
He at length proposed to give me a hundred pounds
of bacon for three hundred shad. This was at least
twice as much as the bacon was worth; but we did
not bargain as men generally do, where half of the
bargain is on each side; for here the captain of the
keel-boat settled the terms for both parties. However,
he ran the hazard of being prosecuted for dealing with
slaves, which is a very high offence in Carolina; and
I was selling that which, in point of law, did not belong
to me; but to which, nevertheless, I felt in my
conscience that I had a better right than any other
person. In support of the right, which I felt to be
on my side in this case, came a keen appetite for the
bacon, which settled the controversy, upon the question
of the morality of this traffic, in my favor. It so
happened, that we made a good haul with our seine
this evening, and at the time I returned to the landing,
the men were all on shore, engaged in drawing in the
seine. As soon as we had taken out the fish, we
placed three hundred of them in one of our canoes, and
pushed over to the keel-boat, where the fish were
counted out, and the bacon was received into our craft
with all possible despatch One part of this small
trade exhibited a trait of human character which I
think worthy of being noticed. The captain of the
boat was a middle-aged, thin, sallow man, with long
bushy hair; and he looked like one who valued the
opinions of men but little. I expected that he would
not be scrupulous in giving me my full hundred
pounds of bacon: but in this I was mistaken; for he
weighed the flitches with great exactness, in a pair of
large steelyards, and gave me good weight. When
the business was ended, and the bacon in my canoe,
he told me, he hoped I was satisfied with him; and
assured me, that I should find the bacon excellent.
When I was about pushing from the boat, he told me
in a low voice, though there was no one who could
hear us, except his own people - that he should be
down the river again in about two weeks, when he
should be very glad to buy any produce that I had
for sale; adding, “I will give you half as much for
cotton as it is worth in Charleston, and pay you either
in money or groceries, as you may choose. Take care,
and do not betray yourself, and I shall be honest with
you.”

I was so much rejoiced at being in possession of a
hundred pounds of good flitch bacon, that I had no
room in either my head or my heart for the consideration
of this man's notions of honesty, at the present
time; but paddled with all strength for our landing,
where we took the bacon from the canoe, stowed it
away in an old salt barrel, and safely deposited it in a
hole dug for the purpose in the floor of my cabin.

About this time, our allowance of sweet potatoes
was withheld from us altogether, in consequence of
the high price paid for this article by the captains of
the keel-boats; for the purpose, as I heard, of sending
them to New York and Philadelphia. Ever since
Christmas we had been permitted to draw, on each
Sunday evening, either a peck of corn, as usual, or
half a peck of corn and half a bushel of sweet potatoes,
at our discretion. The half a peck of corn and
the half a bushel of potatoes was worth much more
than a peck of corn; but potatoes wore so abundant
this year, that they were of little value, and the saving
of corn was an object worth attending to by a
large planter. The boatmen now offered half a dollar
a bushel for potatoes, and we were again restricted
to our corn ration.

Not withstanding the privation of our potatoes, we
at the fishery lived sumptuously, although our master
certainly believed that our fare consisted of corn-bread
and river fish, cooked without lard or butter. It was
necessary to be exceedingly cautious in the use of our
bacon; and to prevent the suspicions of the master
and others who frequented our landing, I enjoined our
people never to fry any of the meat, but to boil it all.
No one can smell boiled bacon far; but fried flitch
can be smelled a mile by a good nose.

We had two meals every night, one of bacon and
the other of fried shad, which nearly deprived us of
all appetite for the breakfasts and dinners that we
prepared in the daytime; consisting of cold corn-bread
without salt, and broiled fresh water fish, without any
sort of seasoning. We spent more than two weeks in
this happy mode of life, unmolested by our master,
his son, or the master of the fishery; except when the
latter complained, rather than threatened us, because
we sometimes suffered our seine to float too far down
the river, and get entangled among some roots and
brush that lay on the bottom, immediately below our
fishing ground. We now expected, every evening, to
see the return of the boatman who had sold us the bacon,
and the man who was with me in the canoe at
the time we received it, had not forgotten the invitation
of the captain to trade with him in cotton on his
return. My fellow-slave was a native of Virginia, as
he told me, and had been sold and brought to Carolina
about ten years before this time. He was a good-natured,
kind-hearted man, and did many acts of
benevolence to me, such as one slave is able to perform
for another, and I felt a real affection for him; but
he had adopted the too common rule of moral action,
that there is no harm in a slave robbing his master.

The reader may suppose, from my account of the
bacon, that I, too, had adopted this rule as a part of
my creed; but I solemnly declare, that this was not
the case, and that I never deprived any one of all the
masters that I have served of anything against his
consent, unless it was some kind of food; and that
of all I ever took, I am confident, I have given away
more than the half to my fellow-slaves, whom I knew
to be equally needy with myself.

The man who had been with me at the keel-boat
told me one day, that he had laid a plan by which we
could get thirty or forty dollars, if I would join him
in the execution of his project. Thirty or forty dollars
was a large sum of money to me. I had never possessed
so much money at one time in my life; and I
told him that I was willing to do anything by which
we could obtain such a treasure. He then told me,
that he knew where the mule and cart, that were used
by the man who carried away our fish, were kept at
night; and that he intended to set out on the first
dark night, and go to the plantation - harness the mule
to the cart - go to the cotton-gin house - put two
bags of cotton into the cart - bring them to a thicket
of small pines that grew on the river bank a short
distance below the fishery, and leave them there until
the keel-boat should return. All that he desired of
me was, to make some excuse for his absence, to the
other hands, and assist him to get his cotton into the
canoe, at the coming of the boat.

I disliked the whole scheme, both on account of its
iniquity and of the danger which attended it; but my
companion was not to be discouraged by all the
arguments which I could use against it, and said, if I
would not participate in it, he was determined to undertake
it alone: provided I would not inform against
him. To this I said nothing; but he had so often
heard me express my detestation of one slave betraying
another, that I presume he felt easy on that score.
The next night but one after this conversation was
very dark, and when we went to lay out the seine
after night, Nero was missing. The other people inquired
of me if I knew where he was, and when I replied
in the negative, little more was said on the subject;
it being common for the slaves to absent themselves
from their habitations at night, and if the matter
is not discovered by the overseer or master, nothing is
ever said of it by the slaves. The other people supposed
that, in this instance, Nero had gone to see a
woman whom he lived with as his wife, on a plantation
a few miles down the river; and were willing to
work a little harder to permit him to enjoy the pleasure
of seeing his family. He returned before day,
and said he had been to see his wife, which satisfied
the curiosity of our companions. The very next evening
after Nero's absence, the keel-boat descended the
river, came down on our side, hailed us at the fishery,
and, drawing in to the shore below our landing, made
her ropes fast among, the young pines of which I have
spoken above. After we made our first haul, I missed
Nero; but he returned to us before we had laid out
the seine, and told us that he had been in the woods
to collect some light-wood - dry, resinous pine - which
he brought on his shoulder. When the morning came,
the keel-boat was gone, and every thing wore the ordinary
aspect about our fishery; but when the man came
with the mule and the cart to take away the fish, he
told us that there was great trouble on the plantation.
The overseer had discovered that some one had stolen
two bags of cotton the last night, and all the hands
were undergoing an examination on the subject. The
slaves on the plantation, one and all, denied having
any knowledge of the matter, and, as there was no
evidence against any one, the overseer threatened, at
the time he left the quarter, to whip every hand on
the estate, for the purpose of making them discover
who the thief was.

The slaves on the plantation differed in opinion as
to the perpetrator of this theft; but the greater number
concurred in charging it upon a free negro man,
named Ishmael, who lived in a place called the White
Oak Woods, and followed making ploughs and harrow
frames. He also made handles for hoes, and the frame
work of cart bodies.

This man was generally reputed a thief for a great
distance round the country, and the black people
charged him with stealing the cotton on no other
evidence than his general bad character. The
overseer, on the other hand, expressed his opinion
without hesitation, which was, that the cotton had been
stolen by some of the people of the plantation, and sold
to a poor white man, who resided at the distance of three
miles back in the pine woods, and was believed to have
dealt with slaves, as a receiver of their stolen goods,
for many years.

This white man was one of a class of poor cottagers.
The house, or cabin, in which he resided, was built
of small poles of the yellow pine, with the bark remaining
on them; the roof was of clap-boards of pine, and
the chimney was made of sticks and mud, raised to
the height of eight or ten feet. The appearance of the
man and his wife was such as one might expect to find
in such a dwelling. The lowest poverty had, through
life, been the companion of these poor people, of which
their clayey complexions, haggard figures, and tattered
garments gave the strongest proof. It appeared to me
that the state of destitution in which these people
lived, afforded very convincing evidence that they were
not in possession of the proceeds of the stolen goods of
any person. I had often been at the cabin of this man
in my trapping expeditions, the previous autumn and
winter; and I believe the overseer regarded the
circumstance, that black people often called at his house,
as conclusive evidence that he held criminal intercourse
with them. However this might be, the overseer determined
to search the premises of this harmless forester,
whom he resolved, beforehand, to treat as a guilty
man.

It being known that I was well acquainted with the
woods in the neighborhood of the cabin, I was sent
for, to leave the fishery, and come to assist in making
search for the lost bags of cotton - perhaps it was also
believed that I was in the secrets of the suspected
house. It was not thought prudent to trust any of
the hands on the plantation in making the intended
search, as they were considered the principal thieves;
whilst we, of the fishery, against whom no suspicion
had arisen, were required to give our assistance in ferreting
out the perpetrators of an offence of the highest
grade that can be committed by a slave on a cotton
estate.

Before leaving the fishery, I advised the master to
be very careful not to let the overseer, or my master
know, that he had left us to manage the fishery at
night, by ourselves; since, as a theft had been committed,
it might possibly be charged upon him, if it
were known that he had allowed us so much liberty.
I said this to put the master on his guard against surprise;
and to prevent him from saying anything that
might turn the attention of the overseer to the hands
at the fishery; for I knew that if punishment were to
fall amongst us, it would be quite as likely to reach the
innocent as the guilty - besides, though I was innocent
of the bags of cotton, I was guilty of the bacon, and,
however I might make distinctions between the moral
turpitude of the two cases, I knew that if discovered,
they would both be treated alike.

When I arrived at the quarter, whither I repaired,
in obedience to the orders I received, I found the overseer
with my master's eldest son, and a young white
man, who had been employed to repair the cotton-gin,
waiting for me. I observed when I came near the overseer,
that he looked at me very attentively, and afterwards
called my young master aside, and spoke to
him in a tone of voice too low to be heard by me. The
white gentlemen then mounted their horses, and set off
by the road for the cabin of the white man. I had
orders to take a short route, through the woods and
across a swamp, by which I could reach the cabin as
soon as the overseer.

The attentive examination that the overseer had
given me, caused me to feel uneasy, although I could
not divine the cause of his scrutiny, nor of the subject
of the short conversation between him and my young
master. By traveling at a rapid pace, I arrived at the
cabin of the suspected man before the gentlemen, but
thought it prudent not to approach it before they came
up, lest it might be imagined that I had gone in to
give information to the occupants of the danger that
threatened them.

Here I had a hard struggle with my conscience,
which seemed to say to me, that I ought at once to
disclose all I knew concerning the lost bags of cotton,
or the purpose of saving these poor people from the
terror that they must necessarily feel at the sight of
those who were coming to accuse them of a great crime,
perhaps from the afflictions and sufferings attendant
upon a prosecution in a court of justice. These reflections
were cut short by the arrival of the party of
gentlemen, who passed me where I sat, at the side of
the path, with no other notice than a simple command
of the overseer to come on. I followed them into the
cabin, where we found the man and his wife, with two
little children, eating roasted potatoes.

The overseer saluted this family by telling them
that we had come to search the house for stolen cotton.
That it was well known that he had long been dealing
with negroes, and they were now determined to bring
him to punishment. I was then ordered to tear up
the floor of the cabin, whilst the overseer mounted into
the loft. I found nothing under the floor, and the
overseer had no better success above. The wife was
then advised to confess where her husband had concealed
the cotton, to save herself from being brought
in as a party to the affair; but this poor woman protested
with tears that they were totally ignorant of the
whole matter. Whilst the wife was interrogated, the
father stood without his own door, trembling with fear,
but, as I could perceive, indignant with rage.

The overseer, who was fluent in the use of profane
language, exerted the highest degree of his vulgar
eloquence upon these harmless people, whose only crime
was their poverty, and whose weakness alone had invited
the ruthless aggression of their powerful and rich
neighbors.

Finding nothing in the house, the gentlemen set out
to scour the woods around the cabin, and commanded
me to take the lead in tracing out tree tops and thickets,
where it was most likely that the stolen cotton
might be found. Our search was in vain, as I knew
it would be beforehand; but when weary of ranging in
the woods, the gentlemen again returned to the cabin,
which we now found without inhabitants. The alarm
caused by our visit, and the manner in which the gentlemen
had treated this lonely family, had caused them
to abandon their dwelling, and seek safety in flight
The door of the house was closed and fastened with a
string to a nail in the post of the door. After calling
several times for the fugitives, and receiving no answer,
the door was kicked open by my young master; the
few articles of miserable furniture that the cabin
contained, including a bed, made of flags, were thrown
into a heap in the corner, and fire was set to the dwelling
by the overseer.

We remained until the flames had reached the roof
of the cabin, when the gentlemen mounted their horses
and set off for home, ordering me to return by the way
that I had come. When we again reached the house
of my master, several gentlemen of the neighborhood
had assembled, drawn together by common interest
that is felt amongst the planters to punish theft, and
particularly a theft of cotton in the bag. My young
master related to his neighbors, with great apparent
satisfaction, the exploits of the morning; said he had
routed one receiver of stolen goods out of the country,
and that all others of his character ought to be dealt
with in the same manner. In this opinion all the
gentlemen present concurred, and after much conversation
on the subject, it was agreed to call a general
meeting for the purpose of devising the best, surest
and most peaceful method of removing from the country
the many white men who, residing in the district
without property, or without interest in preserving the
morals of the slaves, were believed to carry on an unlawful
and criminal traffic with the negroes, to the
great injury of the planters in general, and of the
masters of the slaves who dealt with the offenders in
particular.

I was present at this preliminary consultation, which
took place at my master's cotton-gin, whither the
gentlemen had repaired for the purpose of looking at the
place where the cotton had been removed. So many
cases of this forbidden traffic between the slaves and
these “white negro dealers,” as they were termed, were
here related by the different gentlemen, and so many
white men were referred to by name as being concerned
in this criminal business, that I began to suppose the
losses of the planters in this way must be immense.
This conference continued until I had totally forgotten
the scrutinizing look that I had received from our overseer
at the time I came up from the fishery in the
morning; but the period had now come when I again
was to be reminded of this circumstance, for on a sudden
the overseer called me to come forward and let
the gentlemen see me. I again felt a sort of vague
and undefinable apprehension that no good was to grow
out of this examination of my person, but a command
of our overseer was not to be disobeyed. After looking
at my face, with a kind of leer or side glance, one of
the gentlemen, who was an entire stranger to me, and
whom I had never before seen, said, “Boy, you appear
to live well; how much meat does your master allow
you in a week?” I was almost totally confounded at
the name of meat, and felt the blood rush to my heart,
but nevertheless forced a sort of smile upon my face,
and replied, “My master has been very kind to all his
people of late, but has not allowed us any meat for
some weeks. We have plenty of good bread, and
abundance of river fish, which, together with the heads
and roes of the shad that we have salted at the landing,
makes a very excellent living for us; though if
master would please to give us a little meat now and
then, we should be very thankful for it.”

This speech, which contained all the eloquence I
was master of at the time, seemed to produce some
effect in my favor; for the gentleman said nothing in
reply, until the overseer, rising from a board on which
he had been sitting, came close up to me and said,
“Charles, you need not tell lies about it; you have
been eating meat, I know you have, no negro could
look as fat, and sleek, and black, and greasy, as you,
if he had nothing to eat but corn bread and river chubs.
You do not look at all as you did before you went to
the fishery; and all the hands on the plantation have
had as many chubs and other river fish as they could
eat, as well as you, and yet they are as poor as snakes
in comparison with you. Come, tell the truth, let us
know where you get the meat that you have been
eating, and you shall not be whipped.” I begged the
overseer and the other gentlemen not to ridicule or
make sport of me, because I was a poor slave, and
was obliged to live on bread and fresh water fish; and
concluded this second harangue by expressing my
thankfulness to God Almighty, for giving me such good
health and strength as to enable me to do my work,
and look so well as I did upon such poor fare; adding
that if I only had as much bacon as I could eat, they
would soon see a man of a different appearance from
that which I now exhibited. “None of you palaver,”
rejoined the overseer - “Why, I smell the meat in you
this moment. Do I not see the grease as it runs out
of you face?” I was by this time in a profuse sweat,
caused by the anxiety of my feelings, and simply said,
“Master sees me sweat, I suppose.”

All the gentlemen present then declared, with one
accord, that I must have been living on meat for
a long time, as no negro, who had no meat to eat,
could look as I did; and one of the company advised
the overseer to whip me, and compel me to confess the
truth. I have no doubt but this advice would have
been practically followed, had it not been for a happy
though dangerous suggestion of my own mind, at this
moment. It was no other than a proposal on my
part, that I should be taken to the landing, and if all
the people there did not look as well and as much
like meat-eaters as I did, then I would agree to be
whipped in any way the gentlemen should deem
expedient. This offer on my part was instantly accepted
by the gentlemen, and it was agreed among them
that they would all go to the landing with the overseer,
partly for the purpose of seeing me condemned
by the judgment to which I had voluntarily chosen to
submit myself, and partly for the purpose of seeing
my master's new fishery.

We were quickly at the landing, though four miles
distant; and I now felt confident that I should escape
the dangers that beset me, provided the master of the
fishery did not betray his own negligence and lead
himself, as well as others, into new troubles.

Though on foot, I was at the landing as soon as
the gentlemen, and was first to announce to the master
the feats we had performed in the course of the
day, adding, with great emphasis, and even confidence
in my manner, “You know, master fish-master,
whether we have had any meat to eat here or not. If
we had meat here, would not you see it? You have
been up with us every night, and know that we have
not been allowed to take even shad, let alone having
meat to eat.” The fish-master supported me in all I
said; declared we had been good boys - had worked
night and day, of his certain knowledge, as he had
been with us all night and every night since we began
to fish. That he had not allowed us to eat anything
but fresh water fish, and the heads and roes of the
shad that were salted at the landing. As to meat, he
said he was willing to be qualified on a cart-load of
Testaments that there had not been a pound at the
landing, since the commencement of the season, except
that which he had in his own cabin. I had now acquired
confidence, and desired the gentlemen to look
at Nero and the other hands, all of whom has as much
the appearance of bacon eaters as myself. This was
the truth, especially with regard to one of the men,
who was much fatter than I was.

The gentlemen now began to doubt the evidence
of their own senses, which they had held infallible
heretofore. I showed the fine fish that we had to eat;
cat, perch, mullets, and especially two large pikes,
that had been caught to-day and assured them that
upon such fare as this, men must needs get fat. I
now perceived that victory was with me for once. All
the gentlemen faltered, hesitated, and began to talk of
other affairs, except the overseer, who still ran about
the landing, swearing and scratching his head, and
saying it was strange that we were so fat, whilst the
hands on the plantation were as lean as sand-hill
cranes. He was obliged to give the affair over. He
was no longer supported by my young master and his
companions, all of whom congratulated themselves
upon a discovery so useful and valuable to the planting
interest; and all determined to provide, as soon
as possible, a proper supply of fresh river fish for their
hands.

The two bales of cotton were never once named,
and, I suppose, were not thought of by the gentlemen,
when at the landing; and this was well for Nero; for
such was the consternation and terror into which he
was thrown by the presence of the gentlemen, and
their inquiries concerning our eating of meat, that the
sweat rolled off him like rain from the plant never-wet;
his countenance was wild and haggard, and his
knees shook like the wooden spring of a wheat-fan.
I believe, that if they had charged him at once with
stealing the cotton, he would have confessed the deed.

CHAPTER XII.

AFTER this the fishing season passed off without
anything having happened, worthy of being noticed
here. When we left the fishery and returned to the
plantation, which was after the middle of April, the
corn and cotton had been planted, and the latter had
been replanted. I was set to plough, with two mules
for my team; and having never been accustomed to
ploughing with these animals, I had much trouble
with them at first. My master owned more than forty
mules, and at this season of the year, they were all at
work in the cotton field, used instead of horses for
drawing ploughs. Some of the largest were hitched
single to a plough; but the smallest were coupled
together.

On the whole, the fishery had been a losing affair
with me; for although I had lived better at the landing
than I usually did at the plantation, yet I had
been compelled to work all the time, by night and by
day, including Sunday, for my master; by which I
had lost all that I could have earned for my own benefit,
had I been on the plantation. I had now become
so well acquainted with the rules of the plantation
and the customs of the country where I lived, that I
experienced less distress than I did at my first coming
to the South.

We now received a shad every Sunday evening with
our peek of corn. The fish were those that I had
caught in the spring, and were tolerably preserved.
In addition to all this, each one of the hands now
received a pint of vinegar every week. This vinegar
was a great comfort to me. As the weather became
hot, I gathered lettuce and other salads, from my
garden in the woods; which, with the vinegar and
bread, furnished me many a cheerful meal. The
vinegar had been furnished to us by our master, more
out of regard to our health than to our comfort, but
it greatly promoted both.

The affairs of the plantation now went on quietly,
until after the cotton had been ploughed and hoed
the first time, after replanting. The working of the
cotton crop is not disagreeable labor - no more so than
the culture of corn - but we were called upon to perform
a kind of labor, than which none can be more
toilsome to the body or dangerous to the health.

I have elsewhere informed the reader that my
master was a cultivator of rice as well as of cotton.
Whilst I was at the fishery in the spring, thirty acres
of swamp land had been cleared off, ploughed and
planted in rice. The water had now been turned off
the plants, and the field was to be ploughed and hoed.
When we were taken to the rice field, the weather
was very hot, and the ground was yet muddy and wet.
The ploughs were to be dragged through the wet soil,
and the young rice had to be cleaned of weeds, by the
hand, and killed up with the hoe.

It is the common opinion, that no stranger can work
a week in a rice swamp, at this season of the year,
without becoming sick; and all the new hands, three
in number, besides myself, were taken ill within the
first five days after we had entered this field. The
other three were removed to the sick room; but I did
not go there, choosing rather to remain at the quarter,
where I was my own master, except that the doctor,
who called to see me, took a large quantity of blood
from my arm, and compelled me to take a dose of
some sort of medicine that made me very sick, and
caused me to vomit violently. This happened on the
second day of my illness, and from this time I recovered
slowly, but was not able to go to the field again
for more than a week. Here it is but justice to my
master to say, that during all the time of my illness,
some one came from the great house every day, to inquire
after me, and to offer me some kind of light and
cool refreshment. I might have gone to the sick room
at any time, if I had chosen to do so.

An opinion generally prevails among the people of
both colors, that the drug copperas is very poisonous
- and perhaps it may be so, if taken in large quantities -
but the circumstance, that it is used in medicine,
seems to forbid the notion of its poisonous qualities.
I believe copperas was mingled with the potion
the doctor gave me. Some overseers keep copperas
by them, as a medicine, to be administered to the
hands whenever they become sick; but this I take to
be a bad practice, for although, in some cases, this drug
may be very efficacious, it certainly should be administered
by a more skillful hand than that of an overseer.
It, however, has the effect of deterring the people
from complaining of illness, until they are no longer
able to work; for it is the most nauseous and sickening
medicine that was ever taken into the stomach.
Ignorant, or malicious overseer may, and often do,
misapply it, as was the case with our overseer, when he
compelled poor Lydia to take a draught of its solution.
After the restoration of my health, I resumed my
accustomed labor in the field, and continued it without
intermission, until I left this plantation.

We had this year, as a part of our crop, ten acres of
indigo. This plant is worked nearly after the manner
of rice, except that it is planted on high and dry
ground, whilst the rice is always cultivated in low
swamps, where the ground may be inundated with
water; but notwithstanding its location on dry ground,
the culture of indigo is not less unpleasant than that
of rice. When tne rice is ripe, and ready for the
sickle, it is no longer disagreeable; but when the
indigo is ripe and ready to cut, the troubles attendant
upon it have only commenced.

The indigo plant bears more resemblance to the weed
called wild indigo, which is common in the woods of
Pennsylvania, than to any other herb with which I am
acquainted.

The root of the indigo plant is long and slender,
and emits a scent somewhat like that of parsley. From
the root issues a single stem, straight, hard, and slender,
covered with a bark, a little cracked on its surface,
of a gray color towards the bottom, green in the middle,
reddish at the extremity, and without the appearance
of pith in the inside. The leaves ranged in pairs
around the stalk, are of an oval form - smooth, soft
to the touch, furrowed above, and of a deep green on the
under side. The upper parts of the plant are loaded
with small flowers, destitute of smell. Each flower
changes into a pod, enclosing seed.

This plant thives best in a rich, moist soil. The
seeds are black, very small, and sowed in straight drills.
This crop requires very careful culture, and must be
kept free from every kind of weeds and grass. It
ripens within less than three months from the time it
is sown. When it begins to flower, the top is cut off,
and, as flowers appear, the plant is again pruned,
until the end of the season.

Indigo impoverishes land more rapidly than almost
any other crop, and the plant must be gathered in
with great caution, for fear of shaking off the valuable
farina that lies in the leaves. When gathered, it is
thrown into the steeping vat - a large tub filled with
water - here it undergoes a fermentation, which, in
twenty-four hours at farthest, is completed. A cock
is then turned to let the water run into the second tub,
called the mortar, or pounding tub: the steeping vat
is then cleaned out, that fresh plants may be thrown
in, and thus the work is continued without interruption.
The water in the pounding tub is stirred with
wooden buckets, with holes in their bottoms, for several
days; and, after the sediment contained in the water
has settled to the bottom of the tub, the water is let
off, and the sediment, which is the indigo of commerce,
is gathered into bags, and hung up to drain. It is
afterwards pressed, and laid away to dry in cakes, and
then packed in chests for market.

Washing at the tubs is exceedingly unpleasant, both
on account of the filth and the stench arising from the
decomposition of the plants.

In the early part of June, our shad, that each one
had been used to receive, was withheld from us, and
we no longer received any thing but the peck of corn
and pint of vinegar. This circumstance, in a community
less severely disciplined than ours, might have
procured murmurs; but to us it was only announced
by the fact of the fish not being distributed to us on
Sunday evening.

This was considered a fortunate season by our people.
There had been no exemplary punishment inflicted
amongst us for several months; we had escaped
entirely upon the occasion of the stolen bags of cotton,
though nothing less was to have been looked for, on that
occurrence, than a general whipping of the whole gang.

There was more or less of whipping amongst us
every week; frequently one was flogged every evening,
over and above the punishments that followed on each
settlement day; but these chastisements, which seldom
exceeded ten or twenty lashes, were of little import.
I was careful, for my own part, to conform to
all the regulations of the plantation.

When I no longer received my fish from the overseer,
I found it necessary again to resort to my own expedients
for the purpose of procuring something in the
shape of animal food, to add to my bread and greens.

I had, by this time, become well acquainted with
the woods and swamps for several miles round our
plantation; and this being the season when the turtles
came upon the land, to deposit their eggs, I availed
myself of it, and going out one Sunday morning,
caught, in the course of the day, by traveling cautiously
around the edges of the swamps, ten snapping turtles,
four of which were very large. As I caught these creatures,
I tied each one with hickory bark, and hung it
up to the bough of a tree, so that I could come and
carry it home at my leisure.

I afterwards carried my turtles home, and put them
into a hole that I dug in the ground, four or five feet
deep, and secured the sides by driving small pieces of
split timber into the ground, quite round the circumference
of the hole, the upper ends of the timber standing
out above the ground. Into this hole I poured
water at pleasure, and kept my turtles until I needed
them.

On the next Sunday, I again went to the swamps to
search for turtles; but as the period of laying their
eggs had nearly passed, I had poor success to-day,
only taking two turtles of the species called skill-pots
- a kind of large terrapin, with a speckled back and
red belly.

This day, when I was three or four miles from home,
in a very solitary part of the swamps, I heard the
sound of bells, similar to those which wagoners place
on the shoulders of their horses. At first, the noise of
bells of this kind, in a place where they were so
unexpected, alarmed me, as I could not imagine who
or what it was that was causing these bells to ring. I
was standing near a pond of water, and listening
attentively; I thought the bells were moving in the
woods, and coming toward me. I therefore crouched
down upon the ground, under cover of a cluster of
small bushes that were near me, and lay, not free from
disquietude, to await the near approach of these mysterious
bells.

Sometimes they were quite silent for a minute or
more at a time, and then again would jingle quick,
but not loud. They were evidently approaching me;
and at length I heard footsteps distinctly in the leaves,
which day dry upon the ground. A feeling of horror
seized me at this moment, for I now recollected that I
was on the verge of the swamp, near which the
vultures and carrion crows had mangled the living bodies
of the two murderers; and my terror was not abated,
when, a moment after, I saw come from behind a large
tree the form of a brawny, famished-looking black man,
entirely naked, with his hair matted and shaggy, his
eyes wild and rolling, and bearing over his head something
in the form of an arch, elevated three feet above
his hair, beneath the top of which were suspended the
bells, three in number, whose sound had first attracted
my attention. Upon a closer examination of this
frightful figure, I perceived that it wore a collar of
iron about its neck, with a large padlock pendant from
behind, and carried in its hand a long staff, with an
iron spear in one end. The staff, like every thing else
belonging to this strange spectre, was black. It slowly
approached within ten paces of me, and stool still.

The sun was now down, and the early twilight produced
by the gloom of the heavy forest, in the midst of
which I was, added approaching darkness to heighten
my dismay. My heart was in my mouth; all the
hairs of my head started from their sockets; I seemed
to be rising from my hiding place into the open air
in spite of myself, and I gasped for breath.

The black apparition moved past me, went to the
water and kneeled down. The forest re-echoed with
the sound of the bells, and their dreadful peals filled
the deepest recesses of the swamps, as their bearer
drank the water of the pond, in which I thought I
heard his irons hiss, when they came in contact with it
I felt confident that I was now in the immediate presence
of an inhabitant of a nether and fiery world, who
had been permitted to escape, for a time, from the place
of torment, and come to revisit the scenes of his
former crimes. I now gave myself up for lost, without
other aid than my own, and began to pray aloud to
heaven to protect me. At the sound of my voice, the
supposed evil one appeared to be scarcely less alarmed
than I was. He sprang to his feet, and, at a single
bound, rushed middeep into the water, then turning,
he besought me in a suppliant and piteous tone of
voice to have mercy upon him, and not carry him back
to his master.

The suddenness with which we pass from the extreme
of one passion, to the utmost bounds of another,
is inconceivable, and must be assigned to the catalogue
of unknown causes and effects, unless we suppose the
human frame to be an involuntary machine, operated
upon by surrounding objects which give it different
and contrary impulses, as a ball is driven to and fro
by the batons of boys, when they play in troops upon
a common. I had no sooner heard a human voice
than all my fears fled, as a spark that ascends from a
heap of burning charcoal, and vanishes to nothing.

I at once perceived, that the object that had well
nigh deprived me of my reason, so far from having
either the will or the power to injure me, was only a
poor destitute African negro, still more wretched and
helpless than myself.

Rising from the bushes, I now advanced to the water
side, and desired him to come out without fear, and
to be assured that if I could render him any assistance,
I would do it most cheerfully. As to carrying him
back to his master, I was more ready to ask help to
deliver me from my own, than to give aid to any one
in forcing him back to his

We now went to a place in the forest, where the
ground was, for some distance, clear of trees, and
where the light of the sun was yet so strong, that
every object could be seen. My new friend now desired
me to look at his back, which was seamed and ridged
with scars of the whip, and the hickory, from the pole
of his neck to the lower extremity of the spine. The
natural color of the skin had disappeared, and was
succeeded by a streaked and speckled appearance of
dusky white and pale flesh-color, scarcely any of the original
black remaining. The skin of this man's back had been
again and again cut away by the thong, and renewed
by the hand of nature, until it was grown fast
to the flesh, and felt hard and turbid.

He told me his name was Paul; that he was a native
of Congo, in Africa, that he had left an aged
mother, a widow, at home, as also a wife and four
children; that it had been his misfortune to fall into
the hands of a master, who was frequently drunk, and
whose temper was so savage, that his chief delight
appeared to consist in whipping and torturing his
slaves, of whom he owned near twenty; but through
some unaccountable caprice, he had contracted a particular
dislike against Paul, whose life he now declared
to me was insupportable. He had then been wandering
in the woods, more than three weeks, with no other
subsistence than the land tortoises, frogs, and other
reptiles that he had taken in the woods, and along
the shores of the ponds, with the aid of his spear. He
had not been able to take any of the turtles in the
laying season, because the noise of his bells frightened
them, and they always escaped to the water before he
could catch them. He had found many eggs, which
he had eaten raw, having no fire, nor any means of
making fire, to cook his food. He had been afraid to
travel much in the middle of the day, lest the sound
of his bells should be heard by some one, who would
make his master acquainted with the place of his
concealment. The only periods when he ventured to go
in search of food, were early in the morning, before
people could have time to leave their homes and rearch
the swamp: or late in the evening, after those who
were in pursuit of him had gone to their dwellings for
the night.

This man spoke our language imperfectly, but
possessed a sound and vigorous understanding, and
reasoned with me upon the propriety of destroying a life
which was doomed to continual distress. He informed
me that he had first run away from his master more
than two years ago, after being whipped with long
hickory switches until he fainted. That he concealed
himself in a swamp, at that time, ten or fifteen miles
from this place, for more than six months, but was
finally betrayed by a woman whom he sometimes
visited; that when taken, he was again whipped until
he was not able to stand, and had a heavy block
of wood chained to one foot, which he was obliged to
drag after him at his daily labor, for more than three
months, when he found an old file, with which he cut
the irons from his ancle, and again escaped to the
woods, but was retaken within little more than a week
after his flight, by two men who were looking after
their cattle, and came upon him in the woods where
he was asleep.

On being returned to his master, he was again
whipped, and then the iron collar that he now wore, with
the iron rod extending from one shoulder over his
head to the other, with the bells fastened at the top
of the arch, were put upon him. Of these irons he
could not divest himself, and wore them constantly
from that time to the present.

I had no instruments with me to enable me to
release Paul from his manacles, and all I could do for
him was to desire him to go with me to the place
where I had left my terrapins, which I gave to him,
together with all the eggs that I had found to-day. I
also caused him to lie down, and having furnished
myself with a flint-stone, (many of which lay in the
sand near the edge of the pond) and a handful of dry
moss, I succeeded in striking fire from the iron collar
and made a fire of sticks, upon which he could roast
the terrapins and the eggs. It was now quite dark,
and I was full two miles from my road, with no
path to guide me towards home, but the small traces
made in the woods by the cattle.

I advised Paul to bear his misfortunes as well as he
could, until the next Sunday, when I would return
and bring with me a file, and other things necessary
to the removal of his fetters.

I now set out alone, to make my way home, not
without some little feeling of trepidation, as I passed
along in the dark shade of the pine trees, and thought
of the terrific deeds that had been done in these woods.

This was the period of the full moon, which now
rose and cast her brilliant rays through the tops of the
trees that overhung my way, and enveloped my path
in a gloom more cheerless than the obscurity of total
darkness. The path I traveled led by sinuosities
around the margin of the swamp, and finally ended at
the extremity of the cart-road terminating at the spot
where David and Hardy had been given alive for food
to vultures; and over this ground I was now obliged
to pass, unless I chose to turn far to the left, through
the pathless forest, and make my way to the high
road near the spot where the lady had been torn from
her horse. I hated the idea of acknowledging to my
own heart, that I was a coward, and dared not look
upon the bones of a murderer at midnight; and there
was little less of awe attached to the notion of visiting
the ground where the ghost of the murdered woman
was reported to wander in the moonbeams, than in
visiting the scene where diabolical crimes had been
visited by fiend-like punishment.

My opinion is, that there is no one who is not at
times subject to a sensation approaching fear, when
placed in situations similar to that in which I found
myself this night. I did not believe that those who
had passed the dark line, which separates the living
from the dead, could again return to the earth, either
for good or for evil; but that solemn foreboding of
the heart which directs the minds of all men to a
contemplation of the just judgment, which a superior, and
unknown power, holds in reservation for the deeds of
this life, filled my soul with a dread conception of
the unutterable woes which a righteous and unerring
tribunal must award to the blood-stained spirits of
the two men whose lives had been closed in such
unspeakable torment by the side of the path I was now
treading.

The moon had risen high above the trees and shone
with a clear and cloudless light; the whole firmament
of heaven was radiant with the lustre of a mild and
balmy summer evening. Save only the droppings of
the early dew from the lofty branches of the trees into
the water, which lay in shallow pools on my right,
and the light trampling of my own footsteps, the stillness
of night pervaded the lonely wastes around me.
But there is a deep melancholy in the sound of the
heavy drop as it meets the bosom of the wave in a
dense forest at night, that revives in the memory the
recollection of the days of other years, and fills the
heart with sadness.

I was now approaching the unhallowed ground
where lay the remains of the remorseless and guilty
dead, who had gone to their final account, reeking in
their sins, unatoned, unblest and unwept. Already
I saw the bones, whitened by the rain and bleached
in the sun, lying scattered and dispersed, a leg here
and an arm there, while a scull with the under jaw in
its place, retaining all its teeth, grinned a ghastly
laugh, with its front full in the beams of the moon,
which, falling into the vacant sockets of the eye-balls,
reflected a pale shadow from these deserted caverns,
and played in twinkling lustre upon the bald and
skinless forehead.

In a moment, the night-breeze agitated the leaves
of the wood and moaned in dreary sighs through the
lofty pine tops; the gale shook the forest in the depth
of its solitudes: a cloud swept across the moon, and
her light disappeared; a flock of carrion crows disturbed
in their roosts, flapped their wings and fluttered
over my head; and a wolf, who had been knawing
the dry bones, greeted the darkness with a long and
dismal howl.

I felt the blood chill in my veins, and all my joints
shuddered, as if I had been smitten by electricity.
At least a minute elapsed before I recovered the power
of self-government. I hastened to fly from a place
devoted to crime, where an evil genius presided in
darkness over a fell assembly of howling wolves and
blood-snuffing vultures.

When I arrived at the quarter, all was quiet. The
inhabitants of this mock-village were wrapped in
forgetfulness; and I stole silently into my little loft and
joined my neighbors in their repose. Experience had
made me so well acquainted with the dangers that
beset the life of a slave, that I determined, as a matter
of prudence, to say nothing to any one of the adventures
of this Sunday, but went to work on Monday
morning, at the summons of the overseer's horn, as if
nothing unusual had occurred. In the course of the
week I often thought of the forlorn and desponding
African, who had so terrified me in the woods, and
who seemed so grateful for the succor I gave him.
I felt anxious to become better acquainted with this
man, who possessed knowledge superior to the common
race of slaves, and manifested a moral courage in
the conversation that I had with him, worthy of a
better fate than that to which fortune had consigned
him. On the following Sunday, having provided myself
with a large file, which I procured from the blacksmith's
shop, belonging to the plantation, I again repaired
to the place, at the side of the swamp, where
I had first seen the figure of this ill-fated man. I expected
that he would be in waiting for me at the appointed
place, as I had promised him that I would
certainly come again, at this time: but on arriving
at the spot where I had left him, I saw no sign of any
person. The remains of the fire I had kindled were
here, and it seemed that the fire had been kept up for
several days, by the quantity of ashes that lay in a
heap, surrounded by numerous small brands. The
impressions of human feet were thickly disposed around
this decayed fire: and the bones of the terrapins that
I had given to Paul, as well as the skeletons of many
frogs, were scattered upon the ground, but there was
nothing that showed that any one had visited this
spot, since the fall of the last rain, which I now recollected
had taken place on the previous Thursday.
From this circumstance I concluded, that Paul had
relieved himself of his irons and gone to seek concealment
in some other place, or that his master had
discovered his retreat and carried him back to the
plantation.

Whilst standing at the ashes I heard the croaking
of ravens at some distance in the woods, and immedidately
afterwards a turkey-buzzard passed over me
pursued by an eagle, coming from the quarter in which
I had just heard the ravens. I knew that the eagle
never pursued the buzzard for the purpose of preying
upon him, but only to compel him to disgorge himself
of his own prey for the benefit of the king of birds. I
therefore concluded that there was some dead animal
in my neighborhood that had called all these ravenous
fowls together. It might be that Paul had killed a
cow by knocking her down with a pine knot, and that
he had removed his residence to this slaughtered animal.
Curiosity was aroused in me, and I proceeded
to examine the woods.

I had not advanced more than two hundred yards
when I felt oppressed by a most sickening stench, and
saw the trees swarming with birds of prey, buzzards
perched upon their branches, ravens sailing amongst
their boughs, and clouds of carrion crows flitting about,
and poising themselves in the air in a stationary position,
after the manner of that most nauseous of all
birds, when it perceives, or thinks it perceives, some
object of prey. Proceeding onward, I came in view of
a large sassafras tree, around the top of which was
congregated a cloud of crows, some on the boughs and
others on the wing, whilst numerous buzzards were
sailing low and nearly skimming the ground. This
sassafras tree had many low horizontal branches, attached
to one of which I now saw the cause of so vast
an assembly of the obscene fowls of the air. The lifeless
and putrid body of the unhappy Paul hung, suspended
by a cord made of twisted hickory bark, passed
in the form of a halter round the neck, and firmly
bound to a limb of the tree.

It was manifest that he had climbed the tree,
fastened the cord to the branch, and then sprung off. -
The smell that assailed my nostrils was too overwhelming
to permit me to remain long in view of the dead
body, which was much mangled and torn, though its
identity was beyond question, for the iron collar, and
the bells with the arch that bore them, were still in
their place. The bells had preserved the corpse from
being devoured; for whilst I looked at it I observed a
crow descend upon it, and make a stroke at the face
with its beak, but the motion that this gave to the
bells caused them to rattle, and the bird took to flight.

Seeing, that I could no longer render assistance to
Paul, who was now beyond the reach of his master's
tyranny, as well as of my pity, I returned without delay
to my master's house, and going into the kitchen,
related to the household servants that I had found a
black man hung in the woods with bells upon him. -
This intelligence was soon communicated to my master,
who sent for me to come into the house to relate
the circumstance to him. I was careful not to tell
that I had seen Paul before his death; and when I
had finished my narrative, my master observed to a
gentleman who was with him, that this was a heavy
loss to the owner, and told me to go.

Tho body of Paul was never taken down, but
remained hanging where I had seen it until the flesh
fell from the bones, or was torn off by the birds. I
saw the bones hanging in the sassafras tree more than
two months afterwards, and the last time that I was
ever in these swamps.

CHAPTER XIII.

AN affair was now in progress, which, though the
persons who were actors in it were far removed from
me, had in its effects a great influence upon the fortunes
of my life. I have informed the reader that my
master had three daughters, and that the second of
the sisters was deemed a great beauty. The eldest of
the three was married about the time of which I now
write, to a planter of great wealth, who resided near
Columbia; but the second had formed an attachment
to a young gentleman whom she had frequently seen
at the church attended by my master's family As this
young man, either from want of wealth, or proper persons
to introduce him, had never been at my master's
house, my young mistress had no opportunity of
communicating to him the sentiments she entertained
towards him, without violating the rules of modesty in
which she had been educated. Before she would
attempt any thing which might be deemed a violation
of the decorum of her sex, she determined to take a
new method of obtaining a husband. She
communicated to her father, my master, a knowledge
of the whole affair, with a desire that he would invite the
gentleman of her choice to his house. This the father
resolutely opposed, upon the ground that the young
man upon whom his daughter had fixed her heart was
without property, and consequently destitute of the
means of supporting his daughter in a style suitable
to the rank she occupied in society. A woman in love
is not easily foiled in her purposes; my young mistress,
by continual entreaties, so far prevailed over the
affections, or more probably the fears of her father,
that he introduced the young man to his family, and
about two months afterwards my young mistress was
a bride; but it had been agreed amongst all the parties,
as I understood, before the marriage, that as the
son-in-law had no land or slaves of his own, he should
remove with his wife to a large tract of land that
my master owned in the new purchase in the State of
Georgia.

In the month of September, my master came to the
quarter one evening, at the time of our return from
the field, in company with his son-in-law, and informed
me that he had given me, with a number of
others of his slaves, to his daughter: and that I, with
eight other men and two or three women, must set
out on the next Sunday with my new master, for his
estate in Georgia, whither we were to go, to clear land,
build houses, and make other improvements, necessary
for the reception of the newly married lady, in the following
spring.

I was much pleased with the appearance and manners
of my new master, who was a young man apparently
about twenty-seven or eight years old, and of
good figure. We were to take with us, in our expedition
to Georgia, a wagon, to be drawn by six mules,
and I was appointed to drive the team. Before we
set off my young mistress came in person to the quarter,
and told us that all those who were going to the
new settlement must come to the house, where she
furnished each of us with two full suits of clothes, one
of coarse woollen, and the other of hempen cloth. She
also gave a hat to each of us, and two pairs of shoes,
with a trifle in money, and enjoined us to be good boys
and girls, and get things ready for her, and that when
she should come to live with us we should not be forgotten.
The conduct of this young lady was so different
from that which I had been accustomed to witness
since I came to Carolina, that I considered myself
highly fortunate in becoming her slave, and now
congratulated myself with the idea that I should, in future,
have a mistress who would treat me kindly, and
if I behaved well, would not permit me to want.

At the time appointed we set out for Georgia, with
all the tools and implements necessary to the prosecution
of a new settlement. My young master accompanied
us, and traveled slowly for several days to enable
me to keep up with him. We continued our
march in this order until we reached the Savannah
river at the town of Augusta, where my master told
me that he was so well satisfied with my conduct, that
he intended to leave me with the team to bring on
the goods and the women and children; but that he
would take the men and push on as fast as possible,
to the new settlement, and go to work until the time
of my arrival. He gave me directions to follow on
and inquire for Morgan county Court House, and said
that he would have a person ready there on my arrival
to guide me to him and the people with him. He
then gave me twenty dollars to buy food for the mules
and provisions for myself and those with me, and left
me on the high road master of myself and the team.
I was resolved that this striking proof of confidence on
the part of my master should not be a subject of regret
to him, and pursued my route with the greatest
diligence, taking care to lay out as little money as
possible for such things as I had to buy. On the sixth
day, in the morning, I arrived at our new settlement
in the middle of a heavy forest of such timber as is
common to that country, with three dollars and twenty-five
cents in my pocket, part of the money given to
me at Augusta. This I offered to return, but my
master refused to take it, and told me to keep it for
my good conduct. I now felt assured that all my
troubles in this world were ended, and that, in future,
I might look forward to a life of happiness and ease,
for I did not consider labor any hardship, if I was well
provided with good food and clothes, and my other
wants properly regarded.

My master and the people who were with him had,
before our arrival with the wagon, put up the logs of
two cabins, and were engaged, when we came, in
covering one of them with clapboards. In the course of
the next day we completed both these cabins, with
puncheon floors and small glass windows, the sash and
glass for which I had brought in the wagon. We put
up two other cabins, and a stable for the mules, and
then began to clear land. After a few days my master
told me he meant to go down into the settlements to
buy provisions for the winter, and that he should
leave me to oversee the hands, and carry on the work
in his absence. He accordingly left us, taking with
him the wagon and two boys, one to drive the team,
and another to drive cattle and hogs, which he intended
to buy and drive to our settlement. I now felt
myself almost proprietor of our new establishment,
and believe the men left under my charge did not
consider me a very lenient overseer. I in truth compelled
them to work very hard, as I did myself. At
the end of a week my master returned with a heavy
load of meal and bacon, with salt and other things
that we needed, and the day following a white man
drove to our station several cows and more than twenty
hogs, the greater part of which were breeders. At
this season of the year neither the hogs nor the cattle
required any feeding at our hands. The woods were
full of nuts, and the grass was abundant; but we
gave salt to our stock, and kept the hogs in a pen two
or three days, to accustom them to the place.

We now lived very differently from what we did on
my old master's plantation. We had as much bacon
every day as we could eat, which, together with bread
and sweet potatoes, which we had at will, constituted
our fare. My master remained with us more than
two months; within which time we had cleared forty
acres of ground, ready for the plough; but, a few days
before Christmas, an event took place, which, in its
consequences, destroyed all my prospects of happiness,
and totally changed the future path of my life. A
messenger one day came to our settlement with a letter,
which had been forwarded in this manner, by the
postmaster at the Court House, where the post-office
was kept. This letter contained intelligence of the
sudden death of my old master, and that difficulties
had arisen in the family which required the immediate
attention of my young one. The letter was written
by my mistress. My master forthwith took an account
of the stock of provisions and other things that
he had on hand, and putting the whole under my
charge, gave me directions to attend to the work, and
set off on horseback that evening; promising to return
within one month at furthest. We never saw him
again, and heard nothing of him until late in the
month of January, when the eldest son of my late
master came to our settlement in company with a
strange gentleman. The son of my late master informed
me, to my surprise and sorrow, that my young
master, who had brought us to Georgia, was dead;
and that he and the gentleman with him, were
administrators of the deceased, and had come to
Georgia for the purpose of letting out on lease, for the
period of seven years, our place, with all the people
on it, including me.

To me, the most distressing part of this news was
the death of my young master, and I was still more
sorry when I learned that he had been killed in a duel.
My young mistress, whose beauty had drawn around
her numerous suitors, many of whom were men of
base minds and cowardly hearts, had chosen her
husband, in the manner I have related, and his former
rivals, after his return from Georgia, confederated together,
for the dastardly purpose of revenging themselves,
of both husband and wife, by the murder of
the former.

In all parts of the cotton country there are numerous
taverns, which answer the double purpose of drinking
and gambling houses. These places are kept by
men who are willing to abandon all pretensions to the
character and standing of gentlemen, for the hope of
sordid gain, and are frequented by all classes of
planters, though it is not to be understood that all the
planters resort to these houses. There are men of
high and honorable virtue among the planters, who
equally detest the mean cupidity of the men who keep
these houses, and the silly wickedness of those who
support them. Billiards is the game regarded as the
most polite amongst men of education and fashion;
but cards, dice and every kind of game, whether of
skill or of hazard, are openly played in these sinks of
iniquity. So far as my knowledge extends, there is
not a single district of ten miles square, in all the
cotton region, without at least one of these vile
ordinaries, as they are frequently and justly termed. The
keeping of these houses is a means of subsistence
resorted to by men of desperate reputation, or reckless
character, and they invite as guests all the profligate,
the drunken, the idle, and the unwary of the surrounding
country. In a community where the white man
never works, except at the expense of forfeiting all
claim to the rank of a gentleman, and where it is beneath
the dignity of a man to oversee the labor of his
own plantation, the number of those who frequent
these gaming houses may be imagined.

My young master, fortunately for his own honor,
was of those who kept aloof from the precincts of the
tavern, unless compelled by necessary business to go
there; but the band of conspirators, who had resolved
on his destruction, invited him through one of their
number, who pretended to wish to treat with him concerning
his property, to meet them at an ordinary one
evening. Here a quarrel was sought with him, and
he was challenged to fight with pistols, over the table
around which they sat.

My master, who, it appears, was unable to bear the
reproach of cowardice, even amongst fools, agreed to
fight, and as he had no pistols with him, was presented
with a pair belonging to one of the gang; and accepted
their owner, as his friend, or second in the business.
The result was as might have been expected.
My master was killed at the first fire, by a ball which
passed through his breast, whilst his antagonist
escaped unharmed.

A servant was immediately despatched with a
letter to my mistress, informing her of the death of her
husband. She was awakened in the night to read the
letter, the bearer having informed her maid that it
was necessary for her to see it immediately. The
shock drove her into a feverish delirium, from which
she never recovered At periods, her reason resumed
its dominion, but in the summer following, she became
a mother, and died in child-bed, of puerperal fever.
I obtained this account from the mouth of a black
man, who was the traveling servant of the eldest son
of my old master, and who was with his master at the
time he came to visit the tenant, to whom he let his
sister's estate in Georgia.

The estate to which I was now attached, was
advertised to be rented for the term of seven years, with
all the stock of mules, cattle, and so forth, upon it -
together with seventeen slaves, six of whom were too
young to be able to work at present. The price asked,
was one thousand dollars for the first year, and two
thousand dollars for each of the six succeeding years;
the tenant to be bound to clear thirty acres of land
annually.

Before the day on which the estate was to be let,
by the terms of the advertisement, a man came up
from the neighborhood of Savannah, and agreed to
take the new plantation, on the terms asked. He was
immediately put into possession of the premises, and
from this moment, I became his slave for the term of
seven years.

Fortune had now thrown me into the power of a new
master, of whom, when I considered the part of the
country from whence he came, which had always been
represented to me as distinguished for the cruelty with
which slaves were treated in it, I had no reason to
expect much that was good. I had indeed, from the
moment I saw this new master, and had learned the
place of his former residence, made up my mind to
prepare myself for a harsh servitude; but as we are
often disappointed for the worse, so it sometimes happens,
that we are deceived for the better. This man
was by no means so bad as I was prepared to find him;
and yet, I experienced all the evils in his service, that
I had ever apprehended; but I could never find in
my heart to entertain a revengeful feeling towards him,
for he was as much a slave as I was; and I believe of
the two, the greater sufferer. Perhaps the evils he
endured himself, made him more compassionate of the
sorrows of others; but notwithstanding the injustice
that was done me while with him, I could never look
upon him as a bad man.

At the time he took possession of the estate, he was
alone, and did not let us know that he had a wife, until
after he had been with us at least two weeks. One
day, however, he called us together, and told us that
he was going down the country, to bring up his family
- that he wished us to go on with the work on the
place in the manner he pointed out; and telling the
rest of the hands that they must obey my orders, he
left us. He was gone full two weeks; and when he
returned, I had all the cleared land planted in cotton,
corn, and sweet potatoes, and had progressed with the
business of the plantation so much to his satisfaction,
that he gave me a dollar, with which I bought a pair
of new trowsers - my old ones having been worn out in
clearing the new land, and burning logs.

My master's family, a wife and one child, came with
him; and my new mistress soon caused me to regret
the death of my former young master, for other reasons
than those of affection and esteem.

This woman (though she was my mistress, I cannot
call her lady,) was the daughter of a very wealthy
planter, who resided near Milledgeville, and had several
children besides my mistress. My master was a
native of North Carolina - had removed to Georgia
several years before this - had acquired some property,
and was married to my mistress more than two years,
when I became his slave for a term of years, as I have
stated. I saw many families, and was acquainted with
the moral character of many ladies while I lived in the
South; but I must, in justice to the country, say that
my new mistress was the worst woman I ever saw
amongst the southern people. Her temper was as bad
as that of a speckled viper; and her language, when
she was enraged, was a mere vocabulary of profanity and
virulence.

My master and mistress brought with them when
they came twelve slaves, great and small, seven of
whom were able to do field work. We now had on
our new place a very respectable force; and my master
was a man who understood the means of procuring
a good day's work from his hands, as well as any of his
neighbors. He was also a man who, when left to pursue
his own inclinations, was kind and humane in his
temper and conduct towards his people; and if he had
possessed courage enough to whip his wife two or three
times, as he sometimes whipped his slaves, and to compel
her to observe a rule of conduct befitting her sex,
I should have had a tolerable time of my servitude
with him; and should, in all probability, have been a
slave in Georgia until this day. Before my mistress
came, we had meat in abundance, for my master had
left his keys with me, and I dealt out the provisions
to the people.

Lest my master should complain of me at his return,
or suspect that I had not been faithful to my trust, I
had only allowed ourselves (for I fared in common
with the others) one meal of meat in each day. We
had several cows that supplied us with milk, and a
barrel of molasses was among the stores of provisions.
We had mush, sweet potatoes, milk, molasses, and
sometimes butter for breakfast and supper, and meat
for dinner. Had we been permitted to enjoy this fine
fare after the arrival of our mistress, and had she been
a woman of kindly disposition and lady-like manners,
I should have considered myself well off in the world;
for I was now living in as good a country as I ever saw,
and I much doubt if there is a better one any where.

Our mistress gave us a specimen of her character on
the first morning after her arrival amongst us, by beating
severely, with a raw cow-hide, the black girl who
nursed the infant, because the child cried, and could
not be kept silent. I perceived by this that my mistress
possessed no control over her passions; and that
when enraged she would find some victim to pour her
fury upon, without regard to justice or mercy.

When we were called to dinner to-day, we had no
meat, and a very short supply of bread; our meal being
composed of badly cooked sweet potatoes, some
bread, and a very small quantity of sour milk. From
this time our allowance of meat was withdrawn from
us altogether, and we had to live upon our bread, potatoes,
and the little milk that our mistress permitted
us to have. The most vexatious part of the new discipline
was the distinction that was made between us,
who were on the plantation before our mistress came
to it, and the slaves that she brought with her. To
these latter, she gave the best part of the sour milk,
all the buttermilk, and I believe frequently rations of
meat.

We were not on our part (I mean us of the old
stock) wholly without meat, for our master sometimes
gave us a whole flitch of bacon at once; this he had
stolen from his own smoke-house - I say stolen, because
he took it without the knowledge of my mistress, and
always charged us in the most solemn manner not to
let her know that we had received it. She was as negligent
of the duties of a good housewife, as she was
arrogant in assuming the control of things not within
the sphere of her domestic duties, and never missed
the bacon that our master gave to us, because she had
not taken the trouble of examining the state of the
meat-house. Obtaining all the meat we ate by stealth,
through our master, our supplies were not regular,
coming once or twice a week, according to circumstances.
However, as I was satisfied of the good intentions
of my master towards me, I felt interested in
his welfare, and in a short time became warmly attached
to him. He fared but little better at the hands of
my mistress than I did, except as he ate at the same
table with her, he always had enough of comfortable
food; but in the matter of ill language, I believe my
master and I might safely have put our goods together
as a joint stock in trade, without either the one or the
other being greatly the loser. I had secured the good
opinion of my master, and it was perceivable by any
one that he had more confidence in me than in any of
his other slaves, and often treated me as the foreman
of his people.

This aroused the indignation of my mistress, who,
with all her ill qualities, retained a sort of selfish esteem
for the slaves who had come with her from her father's
estate. She seldom saw me without giving me her
customary salutation of profanity; and she exceeded
all other persons that I have ever known in the quickness
and sarcasm of the jibes and jeers with which she
seasoned her oaths. To form any fair conception of
her volubility and scurrilous wit, it was necessary to
hear her, more especially on Sunday morning or a
rainy day, when the people were all loitering about
the kitchens, which stood close round her dwelling.
She treated my master with no more ceremony than
she did me. Misery loves company, it is said, and I
verily believe that my master and I felt a mutual attachment
on account of our mutual sufferings.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE country I now lived in was new, and abounded
with every sort of game common to a new settlement.
Wages were high, and I could sometimes earn a dollar
and a half a day by doing job work on Sunday. The
price of a day's work here was a dollar. My master
paid me regularly and fairly for all the work I did for
him on Sunday, and I never went anywhere else to
procure work. All his other hands were treated in the
same way. He also gave me an old gun that had
seen much hard service, for the stock was quite
shattered to pieces, and the lock would not strike fire. I
took my gun to a blacksmith in the neighborhood, and
he repaired the lock, so that my musket was as sure
fire as any piece need be. I found upon trial that
though the stock and lock had been worn out, the
barrel was none the worse for the service it had undergone.

I now, for the first time in my life, became a hunter,
in the proper sense of the word; and generally managed
my affairs in such a way as to get the half of
Saturday to myself. This I did by prevailing on my
master to set my task for the week on Monday morning.

Saturday was appropriated to hunting, if I was not
obliged to work all day, and I soon became pretty expert
in the use of my gun. I made salt licks in the
woods, to which the deer came at night, and I shot
them from a seat of clapboards that was placed on the
branches of a tree. Raccoons abounded here, and
were of a large size, and fat at all seasons. In the
month of April I saw the ground thickly strewed with
nuts, the growth of the last year. I now began to
live well, notwithstanding the persecution that my
mistress still directed against me, and to feel myself,
in some measure, an independent man.

The temper of my mistress grew worse daily, and to
add to my troubles, the health of my master began to
decline, and towards the latter part of autumn he told
me that already he felt the symptoms of approaching
death.

This was a source of much anxiety and trouble to
me, for I saw clearly, if I ever fell under the unbridled
dominion of my mistress, I should regret the worst
period of my servitude in South Carolina. I was
afraid as winter came on that my master might grow
worse and pass away in the spring - for his disease was
the consumption of the lungs.

We passed this winter in clearing land, after we had
secured the crops of cotton and corn, and nothing happened
on our plantation to disturb the usual monotony
of the life of a slave, except that in the month of
January, my master informed me that he intended to
go to Savannah for the purpose of purchasing groceries,
and such other supplies as might be required on the
plantation, in the following season; and that he intended
to take down a load of cotton with our wagon
and team, and that I must prepare to be the driver.
This intelligence was not disagreeable to me, as the
trip to Savannah would, in the first place, release me
for a short time from the tyranny of my mistress, and
in the second, would give me an opportunity of seeing
a great deal of strange country. I derived a third advantage,
in after times, from this journey, but which
did not enter into my estimate of this affair, at that
time.

My master had not yet erected a cotton-gin on his
place - the land not being his own - and we hauled
our cotton, in the seed, nearly three miles to be ginned,
for which we had to give one-fourth to the owner of
the gin.

When the time of my departure came, I loaded my
wagon with ten bales of cotton, and set out with the
same team of six mules that I had driven from South
Carolina. Nothing of moment happened to me until
the evening of the fourth day, when we were one hundred
miles from home. My master stopped to-night
(for he traveled with me on his horse) at the house of
an old friend of his; and I heard my master, in
conversation with this gentleman, (for such he certainly
was) give me a very good character, and tell him,
that I was the most faithful and trusty negro that he
had ever owned. He also said that if he lived to see
the expiration of the seven years for which he had
leased me, he intended to buy me. He said much
more of me; and I thought I heard him tell his friend
something about my mistress, but this was spoken in
a low tone of voice, and I could not distinctly understand
it. When I was going away in the morning with
my team, this gentleman came out to the wagon
and ordered one of his own slaves to help me to put
the harness on my mules. At parting, he told me to
stop at his house on my return and stay all night;
and said, I should always be welcome to the use of his
kitchen, if it should ever be my lot to travel that way
again.

I mention these trifles to show, that if there are
hard and cruel masters in the South, there are also
others of a contrary character. The slave-holders are
neither more nor less than men, some of whom are
good and very many are bad. My master and this
gentleman were certainly of the number of the good,
but the contrast between them and some others that
I have seen, was, unhappily for many of the slaves,
very great. I shall, hereafter, refer to this gentleman,
at whose house I now was, and shall never name him
without honor, nor think of him without gratitude.

As I traveled through the country with my team,
my chief employment, beyond my duty of a teamster,
was to observe the condition of the slaves on the
various plantations by which we passed on our journey,
and to compare things in Georgia, as I now saw them,
with similar things in Carolina, as I had heretofore
seen them.

There is as much sameness among the various cotton
plantations in Georgia, as there is among the various
farms in New York or New Jersey. He who has seen
one cotton-field has seen all the other cotton-fields,
bating the difference that naturally results from good
and bad soils, or good and bad culture; but the contrast
that prevails in the treatment of the slaves, on
different plantations, is very remarkable. We traveled
a road that was not well provided with public
houses, and we frequently stopped for the night at the
private dwellings of the planters, and I observed that
my master was received as a visitor, and treated as a
friend in the family, whilst I was always left at the
road with my wagon, my master supplying me with
money to buy food for myself and my mules.

It was my practice, when we remained all night at
these gentlemen's houses, to go to the kitchen in the
evening, after I had fed my mules and eaten my supper,
and pass some time in conversation with the black
people I might chance to find there. One evening we
halted before sundown, and I unhitched my mules at
the road, about two hundred yards from the house of
a planter, to which my master went to claim hospitality
for himself.

After I had disposed of my team for the night, and
taken my supper, I went as usual to see the people of
color in the kitchen, belonging to this plantation. The
sun had just set when I reached the kitchen, and soon
afterwards, a black boy came in and told the woman,
who was the only person in the kitchen when I came
to it, that she must go down to the overseer's house.
She immediately started, in obedience to this order,
and not choosing to remain alone in a strange house,
I concluded to follow the woman, and see the other
people of this estate. When we reached the house of
the overseer, the colored people were coming in from
the field, and with them came the overseer, and another
man, better dressed than overseers usually are.

I stood at some distance from these gentlemen, not
thinking it prudent to be too forward amongst strangers.
The black people were all called together, and
the overseer told them, that some one of them had
stolen a fat hog from the pen, carried it to the woods,
and there killed and dressed it; that he had that day
found the place where the hog had been slaughtered,
and that if they did not confess, and tell who the
perpetrators of this theft were, they would all be whipped
in the severest manner. To this threat, no other reply
was made than a universal assertion of the innocence
of the accused. They were all then ordered to lie
down upon the ground, and expose their backs, to
which the overseer applied the thong of his long whip,
by turns, until he was weary. It was fortunate for
these people, that they were more than twenty in
number, which prevented the overseer from inflicting
many lashes on any one of them.

When the whole number had received, each in turn,
a share of the lash, the overseer returned to the man,
to whom he had first applied the whip, and told him
he was certain that he knew who stole the hog; and
that if he did not tell who the thief was, he would
whip him all night. He then again applied the whip
to the back of this man, until the blood flowed copiously;
but the sufferer hid his face in his hands, and
said not a word. The other gentleman then asked the
overseer if he was confident this man had stolen the
pig; and, receiving an affirmative answer, he said he
would make the fellow confess the truth, if he would
follow his directions. He then asked the overseer if
he had ever tried cat-hauling, upon an obstinate negro;
and was told that this punishment had been heard of,
but never practiced on this plantation.

A boy was then ordered to get up, run to the house,
and bring a cat, which was soon produced. The cat,
which was a large gray tom-cat, was then taken by
the well-dressed gentleman, and placed upon the bare
back of the prostrate black man, near the shoulder,
and forcibly dragged by the tail down the back, and
along the bare thighs of the sufferer. The cat sunk
his nails into the flesh, and tore off pieces of the skin
with his teeth. The man roared with the pain of this
punishment, and would have rolled along the ground,
had he not been held in his place by the force of four
other slaves, each one of whom confined a hand or a
foot. As soon as the cat was drawn from him, the
man said he would tell who stole the hog, and confessed
that he and several others, three of whom were
then holding him, had stolen the hog - killed, dressed,
and eaten it. In return for this confession, the overseer
said he should have another touch of the cat, which
was again drawn along his back, not as before, from
the head downwards, but from below the hips to the
head. The man was then permitted to rise, and each
of those who had been named by him as a participator
in stealing the hog, was compelled to lie down, and
have the cat twice drawn along his back; first downwards,
and then upwards. After the termination of
this punishment, each of the sufferers was washed with
salt water, by a black woman, and they were then all
dismissed. This was the most excruciating punishment
that I ever saw inflicted on black people, and, in
my opinion, it is very dangerous; for the claws of the
cat are poisonous, and wounds made by them are very
subject to inflammation.

During all this time, I had remained at the distance
of fifty yards from the place of punishment, fearing
either to advance or retreat, lest I too might excite
the indignation of these sanguinary judges. After
the business was over, and my feelings became a little
more composed, I thought the voice of the gentleman
in good clothes, was familiar to me; but I could not
recollect who he was, nor where I had heard his voice,
until the gentlemen at length left this place, and went
towards the great house, and as they passed me, I
recognized in the companion of the overseer, my old
master, the negro trader, who had bought me in Maryland,
and brought me to Carolina.

I afterwards learned from my master that this man
had formerly been engaged in the African slave-trade,
which he had given up some years before, for the safer
and less arduous business of buying negroes in the
North, and bringing them to the South, as articles of
merchandise, in which he had acquired a very respectable
fortune - had lately married in a wealthy family,
in this part of the country, and was a great planter.

Two days after this, we reached Savannah, where
my master sold his cotton, and purchased a wagon
load of sugar, molasses, coffee, shoes, dry goods, and
such articles as we stood in need of at home; and on
the next day after I entered the city, I again left it,
and directed my course up the country. In Savannah
I saw many black men who were slaves, and who yet
acted as freemen so far that they went out to work,
where and with whom they pleased, received their own
wages, and provided their own subsistence; but were
obliged to pay a certain sum at the end of each week
to their masters. One of these men told me that he
paid six dollars on every Saturday evening to his master;
and yet he was comfortably dressed, and appeared
to live well. Savannah was a very busy place, and
I saw vast quantities of cotton piled up on the wharves,
but the appearance of the town itself was not much in
favor of the people who lived in it.

On my way home I traveled for several days, by a
road different from that which we had pursued in coming
down; and at the distance of fifty or sixty miles
from Savannah, I passed by the largest plantation that
I had ever seen. I think I saw at least a thousand
acres of cotton in one field, which was all as level as a
bowling-green. There were, as I was told, three hundred
and fifty hands at work in this field, picking the
last of the cotton from the burs; and these were the
most miserable looking slaves that I had seen in all
my travels.

It was now the depth of winter, and although the
weather was not cold, yet it was the winter of this climate;
and a man who lives on the Savannah river a few
years, will find himself almost as much oppressed
with cold, in winter there, as he would be in the same
season of the year on the banks of the Potomac, if he
had always resided there.

These people were, as far as I could see, totally
without shoes, and there was no such garment as a hat of
any kind amongst them. Each person had a coarse
blanket, which had holes cut for the arms to pass
through, and the top was drawn up round the neck,
so as to form a sort of loose frock, tied before with
strings. The arms, when the people were at work,
were naked, and some of them had very little clothing
of any kind besides this blanket frock. The appearance
of these people afforded the most conclusive evidence
that they were not eaters of pork, and that lent
lasted with them throughout the year.

I again staid all night, as I went home, with the
gentleman whom I have before noticed as the friend of
my master, who had left me soon after we quitted Savannah,
and I saw him no more until I reached home.

Soon after my return from Savannah, an affair of a
very melancholy character took place in the neighborhood
of my master's plantation. About two miles from our
residence lived a gentleman who was a bachelor,
and who had for his housekeeper a mulatto woman.
The master was a young man, not more than twenty-five
years old, and the housekeeper must have been at
least forty. She had children grown up, one of whom
had been sold by her master, the father of the bachelor,
since I lived here, and carried away to the West. This
woman had acquired a most unaccountable influence
over her young master, who lived with her as his wife,
and gave her the entire command of his house, and of
every thing about it. Before he came to live where he
now did, and whilst he still resided with his father, to
whom the woman then belonged, the old gentleman
perceiving the attachment of his son to this female,
had sold her to a trader, who was on his way to the
Mississippi river, in the absence of the young man;
but when the latter returned home, and learned what
had been done, he immediately set off in pursuit of
the purchaser, overtook him somewhere in the Indian
territory, and bought the woman of him, at an advanced
price. He then brought her back, and put her as
his housekeeper, on the place where he now lived,
left his father, and came to reside in person with the
woman.

On a plantation adjoining that of the gentleman
bachelor, lived a planter, who owned a young mulatto
man, named Frank, not more than twenty-four or five
years old, a very smart as well as handsome fellow. -
Frank had become as much enamored of this woman,
who was old enough to have been his mother, as her
master, the bachelor was; and she returned Frank's
attachment, to the prejudice of her owner. Frank was
in the practice of visiting his mistress at night, a
circumstance of which her master was suspicious; and
he forbade Frank from coming to the house. This only
heightened the flame that was burning in the bosoms
of the lovers; and they resolved, after many and long
deliberations, to destroy the master. She projected
the plot, and furnished the means for the murder, by
taking her master's gun from the place where he usually
kept it, and giving it to Frank, who came to the
house in the evening, when the gentleman was taking
his supper alone.

Lucy always waited upon her master at his meals,
and knowing his usual place of sitting, had made a
hole between two of the logs of the house, towards
which she knew his back would be at supper. At a
given signal, Frank came quietly up the house, levelled
the gun through the hole prepared for him, and
discharged a load of buck-shot between the shoulders of
the unsuspecting master, who sprang from his seat and
fell dead beside the table. This murder was not known
in tho neighborhood until the next morning, when the
woman herself went to a house on an adjoining plantation
and told it.

The murdered gentleman had several other slaves,
none of whom were at home at the time of his death,
except one man; and he was so terrified that he was
afraid to run and alarm the neighborhood. I knew
this man well, and believe he was afraid of the woman
and her accomplice. I never had any doubt of his
innocence, though he suffered a punishment, upon no
other evidence than mere suspicion, far more terrible
than any ordinary form of death.

As soon as the murder was known to the neighboring
gentlemen, they hastened to visit the dead body,
and were no less expeditious in instituting inquiries
after those who had done the bloody deed. My master
was amongst the first who arrived at the house of
the deceased; and in a short time, half the slaves of
the neighboring plantations were arrested, and brought
to the late dwelling of the dead man. For my own
part, from the moment I heard of the murder, I had
no doubt of its author.

Silence is a great virtue when it is dangerous to
speak; and I had long since determined never to
advance opinions, uncalled for, in controversies between
the white people and the slaves. Many witnesses were
examined by a justice of the peace, before the coroner
arrived, but after the coming of the latter, a jury was
called; and more than half a day was spent in asking
questions of various black people, without the disclosure
of any circumstance, which tended to fix the guilt
of the murder upon any one. My master, who was present
all this time, at last desired them to examine me,
if it was thought that my testimony could be of any
service in the matter, as he wished me to go home to
attend to my work. I was sworn on the Testament
to tell the whole truth; and stated at the commencement
of my testimony, that I believed Frank and Lucy
to be the murderers, and proceeded to assign the reasons
upon which my, opinion was founded. Frank had
not been present at this examination, and Lucy, who
had been sworn, had said she knew nothing of the
matter; that at the time her master was shot she had
gone into the kitchen for some milk for his supper, and
that on hearing the gun, she had come into the room
at the moment he fell to the floor and expired; but
which she opened the door and looked out, she could
neither hear nor see any one.

When Frank was brought in and made to touch
the dead body, which he was compelled to do, because
some said that if he was the murderer, the corpse
would bleed at his touch, he trembled so much that I
thought he would fall but no blood issued from the
wound of the dead man. This compulsory touching
of the dead had, however, in this instance, a much more
powerful effect, in the conviction of the criminal, than
the flowing of any quantity of blood could have had;
for as soon as Frank had withdrawn his hand from the
touch of the dead, the coroner asked him, in a peremptory
tone, as if conscious of the fact, why he had done
this. Frank was so confounded with fear, and overwhelmed
by this interrogatory, that he lost all self-possession,
and cried out in a voice of despair, that
Lucy had made him do it.

Lucy, who had left the room when Frank was
brought in, was now recalled, and confronted with
her partner in guilt, but nothing could wring a word
of confession from her. She persisted, that if Frank
had murdered her master, he had done it of his own
accord, and without her knowledge or advice. Some
one now, for the first time, thought of making search
for the gun of the dead man, which was not found in
the place where he usually had kept it. Frank said
he had committed the crime with this gun, which had
been placed in his hands by Lucy. Frank, Lucy and
Billy, a black man, against whom there was no evidence,
nor cause of suspicion, except that he was in
the kitchen at the time of the murder, were committed
to prison in a new log-house on an adjoining plantation,
closely confined in irons, and kept there a little
more than two weeks, when they were all tried before
some gentlemen of the neighborhood, who held a
court for that purpose. Lucy and Frank were
condemned to be hung, but Billy was found not guilty;
although he was not released, but kept in confinement
until the execution of his companions, which took
place ten days after the trial.

On the morning of the execution my master told
me, and all the rest of the people, that we must go to
the hanging, as it was termed by him as well as others.
The place of punishment was only two miles from my
master's residence, and I was there in time to get a
good stand, near the gallows' tree, by which I was
enabled to see all the proceedings connected with this
solemn affair. It was estimated by my master, that
there were at least fifteen thousand people present at
this scene, more than half of whom were blacks; all
the masters, for a great distance round the country,
having permitted, or compelled their people to come
to this hanging.

Billy was brought to the gallows with Lucy and
Frank, but was permitted to walk beside the cart in
which they rode. Under the gallows, after the rope
was around her neck, Lucy confessed that the murder
had been designed by her in the first place, and that
Frank had only perpetrated it at her instance. She
said she had at first intended to apply to Billy to
assist her in the undertaking, but had afterwards
communicated her designs to Frank, who offered to
shoot her master, if she would supply him with a gun,
and let no other person be in the secret.

A long sermon was preached by a white man under
the gallows, which was only the limb of a tree, and
afterwards an exhortation was delivered by a black
man. The two convicts were hung together, and after
they were quite dead, a consultation was held among
the gentlemen as to the future disposition of Billy,
who, having been in the house when his master was
murdered, and not having given immediate information
of the fact, was held to be guilty of concealing
the death, and was accordingly sentenced to receive
five hundred lashes. I was in the branches of a tree
close by the place where the court was held, and distinctly
heard its proceedings and judgment. Some
went to the woods to cut hickories, whilst others stripped
Billy and tied him to a tree. More than twenty
long switches, some of them six or seven feet in
length, had been procured, and two men applied the
rods at the same time, one standing on each side of
the culprit, one of them using his left hand.

I had often seen black men whipped, and had always,
when the lash was applied with great severity,
heard the sufferer cry out and beg for mercy, but in
this case, the pain inflicted by the double blows of the
hickory was so intense, that Billy never uttered so
much as a groan; and I do not believe he breathed
for the space of two minutes after he received the first
strokes. He shrank his body close to the trunk of the
tree, around which his arms and legs were lashed,
drew his shoulders up to his head like a dying man,
and trembled, or rather shivered, in all his members.
The blood flowed from the commencement, and in a
few minutes lay in small puddles at the root of the
tree. I saw flakes of flesh as long as my finger fall
out of the gashes in his back; and I believe he was
insensible during all the time that he was receiving
the last two hundred lashes. When the whole five
hundred lashes had been counted by the person
appointed to perform this duty, the half dead body
was unbound and laid in the shade of the tree upon
which I sat. The gentlemen who had done the whipping,
eight or ten in number, being joined by their friends,
then came under the tree and drank punch until their
dinner was made ready, under a booth of green boughs
at a short distance.

After dinner, Billy, who had been groaning on the
ground where he was laid, was taken up, placed in
the cart in which Lucy and Frank had been brought
to the gallows, and conveyed to the dwelling of his
late master, where he was confined to the house and
his bed more than three months, and was never worth
much afterwards while I remained in Georgia.

Lucy and Frank, after they had been half an hour
upon the gallows, were cut down, and suffered to drop
into a deep hole that had been dug under them whilst
they were suspended. As they fell, so the earth was
thrown upon them, and the grave closed over them
for ever.

They were hung on Thursday, and the vast
assemblage of people that had convened to witness their
death did not leave the place altogether until the next
Monday morning. Wagons, carts, and carriages had
been brought upon the ground; booths and tents
erected for the convenience and accommodation of the
multitude; and the terrible spectacles that I have
just described were succeeded by music, dancing, trading
in horses, gambling, drinking, fighting, and every
other species of amusement and excess to which the
southern people are addicted.

I had to work in the day-time, but went every night
to witness this funeral carnival, - the numbers that
joined in which appeared to increase, rather than
diminish, during the Friday and Saturday that followed
the execution. It was not until Sunday afternoon that
the crowd began sensibly to diminish; and on Monday
morning, after breakfast time, the last wagons left the
ground, now trampled into dust as dry and as light as
ashes, and the grave of the murderers was left to the
solitude of the woods.

Certainly those who were hanged well deserved their
punishment; but it was a very arbitrary exercise of
power to whip a man until he was insensible, because
he did not prevent a murder which was committed
without his knowledge; and I could not understand
the right of punishing him, because he was so weak or
timorous as to refrain from the disclosure of the crime
the moment it came to his knowledge.

It is necessary for the southern people to be vigilant
in guarding the moral condition of their slaves,
and even to punish the intention to commit crimes,
when that intention can be clearly proved; for such
is the natural relation of master and slave, in by far
the greater number of cases, that no cordiality of feeling
can ever exist between them; and the sentiments
that bind together the different members of society in
a state of freedom and social equality, being absent,
the master must resort to principles of physical restraint,
and rules of mental coercion, unknown in another
and a different condition of the social compact.

It is a mistake to suppose that the southern planters
could ever retain their property, or live amongst their
slaves, if those slaves were not kept in terror of the
punishment that would follow acts of violence and
disorder. There is no difference between the feelings
of the different races of men, so far as their personal
rights are concerned. The black man is as anxious to
possess and to enjoy liberty as the white one would be,
were he deprived of this inestimable blessing. It is
not for me to say that the one is as well qualified for
the enjoyment of liberty as the other. Low ignorance,
moral degradation of character, and mental depravity,
are inseparable companions; and in the breast of an
ignorant man, the passions of envy and revenge hold
unbridled dominion.

It was in the month of April that I witnessed the
painful spectacle of two fellow-creatures being launched
into the abyss of eternity, and a third, being tortured
beyond the sufferings of mere death, not for his
crimes, but as a terror to others; and this, not to deter
others from the commission of crimes, but to stimulate
them to a more active and devoted performance of their
duties to their owners. My spirits had not recovered
from the depression produced by that scene, in which
my feelings had been awakened in the cause of others,
when I was called to a nearer and more immediate
apprehension of sufferings, which, I now too clearly
saw, were in preparation for myself.

My master's health became worse continually, and
I expected he would not survive this summer. In
this, however, I was disappointed; but he was so ill
that he was seldom able to come to the field, and paid
but little attention to his plantation, or the culture of
his crops. He left the care of the cotton field to me
after the month of June, and was not again out on the
plantation before the following October; when he one
day came out on a little Indian pony that he had used as
his hackney, before he was so far reduced as to decline
the practice of riding. I suffered very much this summer
for want of good and substantial provisions, my
master being no longer able to supply me, with his
usual liberality, from his own meat house. I was
obliged to lay out nearly all my other earnings, in the
course of the summer, for bacon, to enable me to bear
the hardship and toil to which I was exposed. My
master often sent for me to come to the house, and
talked to me in a very kind manner; and I believe
that no hired overseer could have carried on the business
more industriously than I did, until the crop was
secured the next winter.

Soon after my master was in the field, in October,
he sent for me to come to him one day, and gave me,
on parting, a pretty good great coat of strong drab
cloth, almost new, which he said would be of service
to me in the coming winter. He also gave me at
the same time a pair of boots which he had worn half
out, but the legs of which were quite good. This
great coat and these boots were afterwards of great
service to me.

As the winter came on my master grew worse, and
though he still continued to walk about the house in
good weather, it was manifest that he was approaching
the close of his earthly existence. I worked very hard
this winter. The crop of cotton was heavy, and we
did not get it all out of the field until some time after
Christmas, which compelled me to work hard myself,
and cause my fellow-slaves to work hard too, in clearing
the land that my master was bound to clear every
year on this place. He desired me to get as much of
the land cleared in time for cotton as I could, and to
plant the rest with corn when cleared off.

As I was now entrusted with the entire superintendence
of the plantation by my master, who never left
his house, it became necessary for me to assume the
authority of an overseer of my fellow-slaves, and I not
unfrequently found it proper to punish them with
stripes to compel them to perform their work. At
first I felt much repugnance against the use of the
hickory, the only instrument with which I punished
offenders, but the longer I was accustomed to this
practice, the more familiar and less offensive it became
to me; and I believe that a few years of perseverance
and experience would have made me as inveterate a
negro-driver as any in Georgia, though I feel conscious
that I never should have become so hardened as to
strip a person for the purpose of whipping, nor should
I ever have consented to compel people to work without
a sufficiency of good food, if I had it in my power
to supply them with enough of this first of comforts.

In the month of February, my master became so
weak, and his cough was so distressing, that he took
to his bed, from which he never again departed, save
only once, before the time when he was removed to
be wrapped in his winding-sheet. In the month
of March, two of the brothers of my mistress came to see
her, and remained with her until after the death of my
master.

When they had been with their sister about three
weeks, they came to the kitchen one day when I had
come in for my dinner, and told me that they were
going to whip me. I asked them what they were going
to whip me for? to which they replied, that they
thought a good whipping would be good for me, and
that at any rate, I must prepare to take it. My mistress
now joined us, and after swearing at me in the
most furious manner, for a space of several minutes,
and bestowing upon me a multitude of the coarsest
epithets, told me that she had long owed me a whipping,
and that I should now get it.

She then ordered me to take off my shirt, (the only
garment I had on, except a pair of old tow linen trowsers,)
and the two brothers backed the command of
their sister, the one by presenting a pistol at my breast,
and the other by drawing a large club over his head
in the attitude of striking me. Resistance was vain,
and I was forced to yield. My shirt being off, I was
tied by the hands with a stout bed-cord, and being led
to a tree, called the Pride of China, that grew in the
yard, my hands were drawn by the rope, being passed
over a limb, until my feet no longer touched the ground.
Being thus suspended in the air by the rope, and my
whole weight hanging on my wrists, I was unable to
move any part of my person, except my feet and legs.
I had never been whipped since I was a boy, and felt
the injustice of the present proceeding with the utmost
keenness; but neither justice nor my feelings
had any influence upon the hearts of my mistress and
her brothers, two men as cruel in temper and as
savage in manners as herself.

The first strokes of the hickory produced a sensation
that I can only liken to streams of scalding water,
running along my back; but after a hundred or hundred
and fifty lashes had been showered upon me, the
pain became less acute and piercing, but was succeeded
by a dead and painful aching, which seemed to
extend to my very backbone.

As I hung by the rope, the moving of my legs
sometimes caused me to turn round, and soon after they
began to beat me I saw the pale and death-like figure
of my master standing at the door, when my face was
turned toward the house, and heard him, in a faint
voice, scarcely louder than a strong breathing,
commanding his brother-in-law to let me go. These
commands were disregarded, until I had received full
three hundred lashes; and doubtlessly more would
have been inflicted upon me, had not my master, with
an effort beyond his strength, by the aid of a stick on
which he supported himself, made his way to me, and
placing his skeleton form beside me as I hung, told
his brother-in-law that if they struck another stroke
he would send for a lawyer and have them both prosecuted
at law. This interposition stopped the progress
of my punishment, and after cutting me down, they
carried my master again into the house. I was yet
able to walk, and went into the kitchen, whither my
mistress followed, and compelled me to submit to be
washed in brine by a black woman, who acted as her
cook. I was then permitted to put my shirt on, and
to go to my bed.

This was Saturday, and on the next day, when I
awoke late in he morning, I found myself unable to
turn over or to rise. I felt too indignant at the barbarity
with which I had been treated to call for help
from any one, and lay in my bed made of corn husks
until after twelve o'clock, when my mistress came to
me and asked me how I was. A slave must not
manifest feelings of resentment, and I answered with
humility, that I was very sore and unable to get up.
She then called a man and woman, who came and
raised me up; but I now found that my shirt was as
fast to my back as if it had grown there. The blood
and bruised flesh having become incorporated with the
substance of the linen, it formed only the outer coat
of the great scab that covered my back.

After I was down stairs, my mistress had me washed
in warm water, and warm grease was rubbed over my
back and sides, until the shirt was saturated with oil,
and becoming soft, was at length separated from my
back. My mistress then had my back washed and
greased, and put upon me one of my master's old
linen shirts. She had become alarmed, and was fearful
either that I should die, or would not be able
to work again for a long time, and in the end, she
lost myself, in consequence of this whipping.

As soon as I was able to walk, my master sent for
me to come to his bed-side, and told me that he was
very sorry for what had happened; that it was not his
fault, and that if he had been well I should never
have been touched. Tears came in his eyes as he
talked to me, and said that as he could not live long,
he hoped I would continue faithful to him whilst he
did live. This I promised to do, for I really loved my
master; but I had already determined, that as soon
as he was in the grave, I would attempt to escape
from Georgia and the cotton country, if my life should
be the forfeiture of the attempt.

As soon as I had recovered of my wounds, I again
went to work, not in my former situation of superintendent
of my master's plantation, for this place was
now occupied by one of the brothers of my mistress,
but in the woods, where my mistress had determined
to clear a new field. After this time, I did nothing
but grub and clear land, while I remained in Georgia,
but I was always making preparations for my departure
from that country.

My master was an officer of militia, and had a sword
which he wore on parade days, and at other times he
hung it up in the room where he slept. I conceived
an idea that this sword would be of service to me in
the long journey that I intended to undertake. One
evening, when I had gone in to see my master, and
had remained standing at his bed-side some time, he
closed his eyes as if going to sleep, and it being twilight,
I slipped the sword from the place where it
hung, and dropped it out of the window. I knew my
master could never need this weapon again, but yet I
felt some compunction of conscience at the thought
of robbing so good a man. When I left the room, I
took up the sword, and afterwards secreted it in a
hollow tree in the woods, near the place at which I
worked daily.

CHAPTER XV.

MY master died in the month of May, and I followed
him to his grave with a heavy heart, for I felt
that I had lost the only friend I had in the world, who
possessed at once the power and the inclination to
protect me against the tyranny and oppression to
which slaves on a cotton plantation are subject.

Had he lived, I should have remained with him and
never have left him, for he had promised to purchase
the residue of my time of my owners in Carolina; but
when he was gone, I felt the parting of the last tie
that bound me to the place where I then was, and my
heart yearned for my wife and children, from whom I
had now been separated more than four years.

I held my life in small estimation, if it was to be
worn out under the dominion of my mistress and her
brothers, though since the death of my master she had
greatly meliorated my condition by giving me frequent
allowances of meat and other necessaries. I believe
she entertained some vague apprehensions that I might
run away, and betake myself to the woods for a living,
but I do not think she ever suspected that I would
hazard the untried undertaking of attempting to make
my way back to Maryland. My purpose was fixed,
and now nothing could shake it. I only waited for a
proper season of the year to commence my toilsome
and dangerous journey. As I must of necessity procure
my own subsistence on my march, it behoved me
to pay regard to the time at which I took it up.

I furnished myself with a fire-box, as it is called,
that is, a tin case containing flints, steel and tinder -
this I considered indispensable. I took the great coat
that my master had given me, and with a coarse
needle and thread quilted a scabbard of old cloth in
one side of it, in which I could put my sword and
carry it with safety. I also procured a small bag of
linen that held more than a peck. This bag I filled
with the meal of parched corn, grinding the corn after
it was parched in the woods where I worked at the
mill at night. These operations, except the grinding
of the corn, I carried on in a small conical cabin that
I had built in the woods. The boots that my master
gave me, I had repaired by a Spaniard who lived in
the neighborhood, and followed the business of a
cobbler.

Before the first of August I had all my preparations
completed, and had matured them with so much
secrecy, that no one in the country, white or black,
suspected me of entertaining any extraordinary design.
I only waited for the corn to be ripe, and fit to be
roasted, which time I had fixed as the period of my
departure. I watched tho progress of the corn daily, and
on the eighth of August I perceived, on examining
my mistress' field, that nearly half of the ears were so
far grown, that by roasting them, a man could easily
subsist himself; and as I knew that this corn had
been planted later than the most of the corn in the
country, I resolved to take leave of the plantation and
its tenants, for ever, on the next day.

I had a faithful dog, called Trueman, and this poor
animal had been my constant companion for more than
four years, without ever showing cowardice or infidelity,
but once, and that was when the panther followed us
from the woods. I was accordingly anxious to bring
my dog with me; but as I knew the success of my
undertaking depended on secrecy and silence, I thought
it safest to abandon my last friend, and engage in my
perilous enterprise alone. On the morning of the ninth
I went to work as usual, carrying my dinner with me,
and worked diligently at grubbing until about one
o'clock in the day. I now sat down and took my last
dinner as the slave of my mistress, dividing the contents
of my basket with my dog. After I had finished
I tied my dog with a rope to a small tree; I set my
gun against it, for I thought I should be better without
the gun than with it; tied my knapsack with my
bag of meal on my shoulders, and then turned to take
a last farewell of my poor dog, that stood by the tree
to which he was bound, looking wistfully at me. When
I approached him, he licked my hands, and then rising
on his hind feet and placing his fore paws on my breast,
he uttered a long howl, which thrilled through my
heart, as if he had said, “My master, do not leave me
behind you.”

I now took to the forest, keeping, as nearly as I
could, a North course all the afternoon. Night overtook
me before I reached any watercourse, or any other
object worthy of being noticed; and I lay down and
slept soundly, without kindling a fire or, eating any
thing. I was awake before day, and as soon as there
was light enough to enable me to see my way, I resumed
my journey and walked on, until about eight
o'clock, when I came to a river, which I knew must
be the Appalachie. I sat down on the bank of the
river, opened my bag of meal, and made my breakfast
of a part of its contents. I used my meal very sparingly,
it being the most valuable treasure that I now
possessed; though I had in my pocket three Spanish
dollars; but in my situation, this money could not
avail me any thing, as I was resolved not to show myself
to any person, either white or black. After taking
my breakfast, I prepared to cross the river, which was
here about a hundred yards wide, with a sluggish and
deep current. The morning was sultry, and the thickets
along the margin of the river teemed with insects and
reptiles. By sounding the river with a pole, I found
the stream too deep to be waded, and I therefore prepared
to swim it. For this purpose I stripped myself,
and bound my clothes on the top of my knapsack, and
my bag of meal on the top of my clothes; then drawing
my knapsack close up to my head, I threw myself
into the river. In my youth I had learned to swim in
the Patuxent, and have seldom met with any person
who was more at ease in deep water than myself. I
kept a straight line from the place of my entrance into
the Appalachie, to the opposite side, and when I had
reached it, stepped on the margin of the land, and
turned round to view the place from which I had set
out on my aquatic passage; but my eye was arrested
by an object nearer to me than the opposite shore.
Within twenty feet of me, in the very line that I had
pursued in crossing the river, a large alligator was
moving in full pursuit of me, with his nose just above
the surface, in the position that creature takes when
he gives chase to his intended prey in the water. The
alligator can swim more than twice as fast as a
man, for he can overtake young ducks on the water;
and had I been ten seconds longer in the river, I should
have been dragged to the bottom, and never again been
heard of.

Seeing that I had gained the shore, my pursuer
turned, made two or three circles in the water close by
me, and then disappeared.

I received this admonition as a warning of the dangers
that I must encounter in my journey to the North.
After adjusting my clothes, I again took to the woods,
and bore a little to the east of north; it now being
my determination to turn down the country, so as to
gain the line of the roads by which I had come to the
South. I traveled all day in the woods; but a short
time before sundown, came within view of an opening
in the forest, which I took to be cleared fields, but
upon a closer examination, finding no fences or other
enclosures around it, I advanced into it and found it to
be an open savannah, with a small stream of water
creeping slowly through it. At the lower side of the
open space were the remains of an old beaver dam,
the central part of which had been broken away by the
current of the stream at the time of some flood. Around
the margin of this former pond, I observed several decayed
beaver lodges, and numerous stumps of small
trees, that had been cut down for the food or fortifications
of this industrious little nation, which had fled
at the approach of the white man, and all its people
were now, like me, seeking refuge in the deepest solitudes
of the forest, from the glance of every human
eye. As it was growing late, and I believed I must
now be near the settlements, I determined to encamp
for the night, beside this old beaver dam. I again
took my supper from my bag of meal, and made my
bed for the night amongst the canes that grew in the
place. This night I slept but little; for it seemed as
if all the owls in the country had assembled in my
neighborhood to perform a grand musical concert. -
Their hooting and chattering commenced soon after
dark, and continued until the dawn of day. In all
parts of the southern country, the owls are very numerous,
especially along the margins of streams, and in
the low grounds with which the waters are universally
bordered; but since I had been in the country, although
I had passed many nights in the woods at all
seasons of the year, I had never before heard so
clamorous and deafening a chorus of nocturnal music. -
With the coming of the morning I arose from my
couch, and proceeded warily along the woods, keeping
a continual lookout for plantations, and listening
attentively to every noise that I heard in the trees, or
amongst the canebrakes. When the sun had been up
two or three hours, I saw an appearance of blue sky
at a distance through the trees, which proved that the
forest had been removed from a spot somewhere before
me, and at no great distance from me; and, as I cautiously
advanced, I heard the voices of people in loud
conversation. Sitting down amongst the palmetto
plants, that grow around me in great numbers, I soon
perceived that the people whose conversation I heard,
were coming nearer to me. I now heard the sound of
horses' feet, and immediately afterwards saw two men
on horseback, with rifles on their shoulders, riding
through the woods, and moving on a line that led them
past me, at a distance of about fifty or sixty yards. -
Perceiving that these men were equipped as hunters,
I remained almost breathless for the purpose of hearing
their conversation. When they came so near that
I could distinguish their words, they were talking of
the best place to take a stand for the purpose of seeing
the deer; from which I inferred that they had sent
men to some other point, for the purpose of rousing
the deer with dogs. After they had passed that point
of their way that was nearest to me, and were beginning
to recede from me, one of them asked the other
if he had heard that a negro had run away the day
before yesterday, in Morgan county; to which his
companion answered in the negative. The first then
said he had seen an advertisement at the store, which
offered a hundred dollars reward for the runaway,
whose name was Charles.

The conversation of these horsemen was now interrupted
by the cry of hounds, at a distance in the woods,
and heightening the speed of their horses, they were
soon out of my sight and hearing.

Information of the state of the country through
which I was traveling, was of the highest value to me;
and nothing could more nearly interest me than a
knowledge of the fact, that my flight was known to
the white people, who resided round about and before
me. It was now necessary for me to become doubly
vigilant, and to concert with myself measures of the
highest moment.

The first resolution that I took was, that I would
travel no more in the day-time. This was the season
of hunting deer, and knowing that the hunters were
under the necessity of being as silent as possible in
the woods, I saw at a glance that they would be at
least as likely to discover me in the forest, before I
could see them, as I should be to see them, before I
myself could be seen.

I was now very hungry, but exceedingly loath to
make any further breaches on my bag of meal, except
in extreme necessity. Feeling confident that there
was a plantation within a few rods of me, I was anxious
to have a view of it, in hope that I might find a
corn-field upon it, from which I could obtain a supply
of roasting ears. Fearful to stand upright, I crept
along through the low ground, where I then was, at
times raising myself to my knees, for the purpose of
obtaining a better view of things about me. In this
way I advanced until I came in view of a high fence,
and beyond this saw cotton, tall and flourishing, but
no sign of corn. I crept up close to the fence, where
I found the trunk of a large tree, that had been felled
in clearing the field. Standing upon this, and looking
over the plantation, I saw the tassels of corn, at
the distance of half a mile, growing in a field which
was bordered on one side by the wood, in which I
stood.

It was now nine or ten o'clock in the morning, and
as I had slept but little the night before, I crept into
the bushes, great numbers of which grew in and about
the top of the fallen tree, and, hungry as I was, fell
asleep. When I awoke, it appeared to me from the
position of the sun, which I had carefully noted before
I lay down, to be about one or two o'clock. As
this was the time of the day when the heat is most
oppressive, and when every one was most likely to be
absent from the forest, I again moved, and taking a
circuitous route at some distance from the fields,
reached the fence opposite the corn-field, without
having met anything to alarm me. Having cautiously
examined everything around me, as well by the eye as
by the ear, and finding all quiet, I ventured to cross
the fence and pluck from the standing stalks about a
dozen good cars of corn, with which I stole back to
the thicket in safety. This corn was of no use to me
without fire to roast it; and it was equally dangerous
to kindle fire by night as by day, the light at one time
and the smoke at another, might betray me to those
who I knew were ever ready to pursue and arrest me.
“Hunger eats through stone walls,” says the proverb,
and an empty stomach is a petitioner, whose solicitations
cannot be refused, if there is anything to satisfy
them with.

Having regained the woods in safety, I ventured to
go as far as the side of a swamp, which I knew to be
at the distance of two or three hundred yards, by the
appearance of the timber. When in the swamp, I
felt pretty secure, but determined that I would never
again attempt to travel in the neighborhood of a plantation
in the daytime.

When in the swamp a quarter of a mile, I collected
some dry wood and lighted it with the aid of my
tinder-box, flint, and steel. This was the first fire
that I kindled on my journey, and I was careful to
burn none but dry wood, to prevent the formation of
smoke. Here I roasted my corn, and ate as much of
it as I could. After my dinner I lay down and slept
for three or four hours. When I awoke, the sun was
scarcely visible through the tree-tops. It was evening,
and prudence required me to leave the swamp
before dark, lest I should not be able to find my way out.

Approaching the edge of the swamp, I watched the
going down of tho sun, and noted the stars as they
appeared in the heavens. I had long since learned to
distinguish the north-star from all the other small
luminaries of the night; and the seven pointers were
familiar to me. These heavenly bodies were all the
guides I had to direct me on my way, and as soon as
the night had set in, I commenced my march through
the woods, bearing as nearly due east as I could.

I took this course for the purpose of getting down
the country as far as the road leading from Augusta
to Morgan County, with the intention of pursuing the
route by which I had come out from South Carolina;
deeming it more safe to travel the high road by night,
than to attempt to make my way at random over the
country, guided only by the stars. I traveled all
night, keeping the north-star on my left hand as
nearly as I could, and passing many plantations, taking
care to keep at a great distance from the houses.
I think I traveled at least twenty-five miles to-night,
without passing any road that appeared so wide, or
so much beaten as that which I had traveled when I
came from South Carolina. This night I passed
through a peach orchard, laden with fine ripe fruit,
with which I filled my pockets and hat; and before
day, in crossing a corn-field, I pulled a supply of
roasting-ears, with which and my peaches, I retired
at break of day to a large wood, into which I traveled
more than a mile before I halted. Here, in the midst
of a thicket of high whortleberry bushes, I encamped for
the day. I made my breakfast upon roasted corn and
peaches, and then lay down and slept, unmolested,
until after twelve o'clock, when I awoke and rose up
for the purpose of taking a better view of my quarters;
but I was scarcely on my feet, when I was attacked
by a swarm of hornets, that issued from a large nest
that hung on the limb of a tree, within twenty or
thirty feet of me.

I knew that the best means of making peace with
my hostile neighbors, was to lie down with my face to
the ground, and this attitude I quickly took, not
however before I had been stung by several of my
assailants, which kept humming through the air about
me for a long time, and prevented me from leaving
this spot until after sundown, and after they had retired
to rest for the night. I now commenced the
attack on my part, and taking a handful of dry leaves,
approached the nest, which was full as large as a half
bushel, and thrusting the leaves into the hole at the
bottom of the nest, through which its tenants passed
in and out, secured the whole garrison prisoners in
their own citadel. I now cut off the branch upon
which the nest hung, and threw it with its contents
into my evening fire, over which I roasted a supply of
corn for my night's journey.

Commencing my march this evening soon after nightfall,
I traveled until about one o'clock in the morning,
as nearly as I could estimate the time by the appearance
of the stars, when I came upon a road which,
from its width and beaten appearance, seemed to be
the road to Morgan County. After traveling for a day
or two near this road, I at last found myself at daybreak
one morning in sight of the home of my late
master's friend, spoken of in our journey to Savannah.
I was desperately hungry, and the idea swayed me to
throw myself upon his generosity and beg for food.

It seemed to me that this gentleman was too benevolent
a man to arrest and send me back to my cruel
mistress; and yet how could I expect, or even hope,
that a cotton planter would see a runaway slave on his
premises, and not cause him to be taken up and sent
home? Failing to seize a runaway slave, when he has
him in his power, is held to be one of tho most dishonorable
acts to which a southern planter can subject
himself. Nor should the people of the North be surprised
at this. Slaves are regarded, in the South, as
the most precious of all earthly possessions; and, at
the same time, as a precarious and hazardous kind of
property, in the enjoyment of which the master is not
safe. The planters may well be compared to the inhabitants
of a national frontier, which is exposed to
the inroads of hostile invading tribes. Where all are
in like danger, and subject to like fears, it is expected
that all will be governed by like sentiments, and act
upon like principles.

I stood and looked at the house of this good planter
for more than an hour after the sun had risen, and
saw all the movements which usually take place on a
cotton plantation in the morning. Long before the
sun was up, the overseer had proceeded to the field at
the head of the hands; the black women who attended
to the cattle, and milked the cows, had gone to the
cowpen with their pails; and the smoke ascended from
the chimney of the kitchen, before the doors of the
great house were opened, or any of the members of the
family were seen abroad. At length two young ladies
opened the door, and stood in the freshness of the
morning air. These were soon joined by a brother;
and at last I saw the gentleman himself leave the
house and walk towards the stables, that stood at some
distance from the house on my left. I think even now
that it was a foolish resolution that emboldened me to
show myself to this gentleman. It was like throwing
one's self in the way of a lion who is known sometimes
to spare those whom he might destroy; but I resolved
to go and meet this planter at his stables, and tell him
my whole story. Issuing from the woods, I crossed
the fields unperceived by the people at the house, and
going directly to the stables, presented myself to their
proprietor, as he stood looking at a fine horse in one
of the yards. At first he did not know me, and asked
me whose man I was. I then asked him if he did not
remember me; and named the time when I had been
at his house. I then told at once that I was a runaway:
that my master was dead, and my mistress so
cruel that I could not live with her: not omitting to
show the scars on my back, and to give a full account
of the manner in which they had been made. The
gentleman stood and looked at me more than a minute,
without uttering a word, and then said, “I will
not betray you, but you must not stay here. It must
not be known that you were on this plantation, and
that I saw and conversed with you. However, as I
suppose you are hungry, you may go to the kitchen
and get your breakfast with my house servants.”

He then set off for the house, and I followed, but
turning into the kitchen, as he ordered me, I was soon
supplied with a good breakfast of cold meat, warm
bread, and as much new buttermilk as I chose to drink.
Before I sat down to breakfast, the lady of the house
came into the kitchen, with her two daughters, and
gave me a dram of peach brandy. I drank this brandy,
and was very thankful for it; but I am fully convinced
now that it did me much more harm than good; and
that this part of the kindness of this most excellent
family was altogether misplaced.

Whilst I was taking my breakfast, a black man
came into the kitchen, and gave me a dollar that he
said his master had sent me, at the same time laying
on the table before me a package of bread and meat,
weighing at least ten pounds, wrapped up in a cloth.
On delivering these things, the black man told me that
his master desired me to quit his premises as soon as
I had finished my breakfast.

This injunction I obeyed, and within less than an
hour after I entered this truly hospitable house, I
quitted it forever, but not without leaving behind me
my holiest blessings upon the heads of its inhabitants.
It was yet early in the morning when I regained the
woods on the opposite side of the plantation from that
by which I had entered it.

CHAPTER XVI.

I could not believe it possible that the white people
whom I had just left, would give information of the
route I had taken; but as it was possible that all who
dwelt on this plantation might not be so pure of heart
as were they who possessed it, I thought it prudent to
travel some distance in the woods, before I stopped for
the day, notwithstanding the risk of moving about in
the open light. For the purpose of precluding the
possibility of being betrayed, I now determined to quit
this road, and travel altogether in the woods or through
open fields, for two or three nights, guiding my march
by the stars. In pursuance of this resolution, I bore
away to the left of the high road, and traveled five or
six miles before I stopped, going round all the fields
that I saw in my way, and keeping them at a good
distance from me.

In the afternoon of this day it rained, and I had no
other shelter than the boughs and leaves of a large
magnolia tree; but this kept me tolerably dry, and as
it cleared away in the evening, I was able to continue
my journey by starlight. I have no definite idea of
the distance that I traveled in the course of this and
the two succeeding nights, as I had no road to guide
me, and was much perplexed by the plantations and
houses, the latter of which I most carefully eschewed;
but on the third night after this I encountered a danger,
which was very nearly fatal to me.

At the time of which I now speak, the moon having
changed lately, shone until about eleven o'clock. I
had been on my way two or three hours this evening,
and all the world seemed to be quiet, when I entered
a plantation that lay quite across my way. In passing
through these fields, I at last saw the houses, and
other improvements, and about a hundred yards from
the house, a peach orchard, which I could distinguish
by the faint light of the moon. This orchard was but
little out of my way, and a quarter of a mile, as nearly
as I could judge, from the woods. I resolved to examine
these peach trees, and see what fruit was on
them. Coming amongst them, I found the fruit of
the kind called Indian peaches in Georgia.

These Indian peaches are much the largest and finest
peaches that I have ever seen, one of them oftentimes
being as large as a common quince. I had filled all
my pockets, and was filling my handkerchief with this
delicious fruit, which is of deep red, when I heard the
loud growl of a dog toward the house, the roof of which
I could see. I stood as still as a stone, but yet the
dog growled on, and at length barked out. I presume
he smelled me, for he could not hear me. In a short
time I found that the dog was coming towards me, and
I then started and ran as fast as I could for the woods.
He now barked louder, and was followed by another
dog, both making a terrible noise. I was then pretty
light of foot, and was already close by the woods
when the first dog overtook me. I carried a good stick
in my hand, and with this I kept the dogs at bay,
until I gained the fence and escaped into the woods;
but now I heard the shouts of men encouraging the
dogs, both of which were now up with me, and the
men were coming as fast as they could. The dogs
would not permit me to run, and unless I could make
free use of my heels, it was clear that I must be taken
in a few minutes. I now thought of my master's
sword, which I had not removed from its quilted scabbard,
in my great coat, since I commenced my journey.
I snatched it from its sheath, and at a single cut laid
open the head of the largest and fiercest of the dogs,
from his neck to his nose. He gave a loud yell and
fell dead on the ground. The other dog, seeing the
fate of his companion, leaped the fence, and escaped
into the field, where he stopped, and like a cowardly
cur, set up a clamorous barking at the enemy he was
afraid to look in the face. I thought this no time to
wait to ascertain what the men would say when they
came to their dead dog, but made the best of my way
through the woods, and did not stop to look behind
me for more than an hour. In my battle with the
dogs, I lost all my peaches, except a few that remained
in my pockets; and in running through the woods
I tore my clothes very badly, a disaster not easily repaired
in my situation; but I had proved the solidity
of my own judgment in putting up my sword as a part
of my traveling equipage.

I now considered it necessary to travel as fast as
possible, and get as far as I could before day from the
late battle-ground, and certainly I lost no time; but
from the occurrences of the next day, I am of opinion
that I had not continued in a straight line all night,
but that I must have traveled in a circular or zigzag
route. When a man is greatly alarmed, and in a
strange country, he is not able to note courses, or
calculate distances very accurately.

Daylight made its appearance, when I was moving
to the South, for the daybreak was on my left hand;
but I immediately stopped, went into a thicket of low
white oak bushes, and lay down to rest myself, for I
was very weary, and soon fell asleep, and did not
awake until it was ten or eleven o'clock. Before I fell
asleep, I noted the course of the rising sun, from the
place where I lay, in pursuance of a rule that I had
established; for by this means I could tell the time
of day at any hour, within a short period of time, by
taking the bearing of the sun in the heavens, from
where I lay, and then comparing it with the place of
his rising.

When I awoke to-day, I felt hungry and after eating
my breakfast, again lay down, but felt an unusual
sense of disquietude and alarm. It seemed to me
that this was not a safe place to lie in, although it
looked as well as any other spot that I could see. I
rose and looked for a more secure retreat, but not seeing
any, lay down again - still I was uneasy, and could
not lie still. Finally I determined to get up, and remove
to the side of a large and long black log, that
lay at the distance of seventy or eighty yards from
me. I went to the log and lay down by it, placing
my bundle under my head, with the intention of going
to sleep again, if I could; but I had not been here
more than fifteen or twenty minutes, when I heard
the noise of men's voices, and soon after the tramping
of horses on the ground. I lay with my back to the
log in such a position, that I could see the place where
I had been in the bushes. I saw two dogs go into
this little thicket, and three horsemen rode over the
very spot where I had lain when asleep in the morning
and immediately horses and voices were at my back
around me, and over me. Two horses jumped over
the log by the side of which I lay, one about ten feet
from my feet, and the other within two yards from my
head. The horses both saw me, took fright, and started
to run; but fortunately their riders, who were probably
looking for me in the tops of the trees, or expecting
to see me start before them in the woods, and
run for my life, did not see me, and attributed the
alarm of their horses to the black appearance of the
log, for I heard one of them say - “Our horses are
afraid of black logs: I wonder how they would stand
the sight of the negro if we should meet him.”

There must have been in the troop at least twenty
horsemen, and the number of dogs was greater than I
could count as they ran in the woods. I knew that
all these men and dogs were in search of me, and that
if they could find me I should be hunted down like a
wild beast. The dogs that had gone into the thicket
where I had been, fortunately for me had not been
trained to hunt negroes in the woods, and were probably
brought out for the purpose of being trained. -
Doubtless if some of the kept dogs, as they are called
of which there were certainly several in this large pack
had happened to go into that thicket, instead of those
that did go there, my race would soon have been run.

I lay still by the side of the log for a long time after
the horses, dogs and men had ceased to trouble the
woods with their noise; if it can be said that a man
lies still who is trembling in every joint, nerve and
muscle, like a dog lying upon a cake of ice; and when
I arose and turned round, I found myself so completely
bereft of understanding, that I could not tell South
from North, nor East from West. I could not even
distinguish the thicket of bushes, from which I had
removed to come to this place, from the other bushes
of the woods. I remained here all day, and at night
it appeared to me that the sun set in the south-east
After sundown, the moon appeared to my distempered
judgment to stand due North from me, and all the
stars were out of their places. Fortunately I had
sense enough remaining to know that it would not be
safe for me to attempt to travel, until my brain had
been restored to its ordinary stability; which did not
take place until the third morning after my fright.
The three days that I passed in this place I reckon
the most unhappy of my life; for surely it is the
height of human misery to be oppressed with alienation
of mind, and to be conscious of the affliction.

Distracted as I was, I had determined never to quit
this wood, and voluntarily return to slavery; and the
joy I felt on the third morning, when I saw the sun
rise in his proper place in the heavens; the black log,
the thicket of bushes, and all other things resume the
positions in which I found them, may be imagined by
those who have been saved from apparently hopeless
shipwreck on a barren rock in the midst of the ocean,
but cannot be described by any but a poetic pen.

I spent this day in making short excursions through
the woods, for the purpose of ascertaining whether any
road was near to me or not; and in the afternoon I
came to one, about a mile from my camp, which was
broad, and had the appearance of being much traveled.
It appeared to me to lead to the North.

Awhile before sundown, I brought my bundle to
this road, and lay down quietly to await the approach
of night. When it was quite dark, except the light
of the moon, which was now brilliant, I took to this
road, and traveled all night without hearing or seeing
any person, and on the succeeding night, about two
o'clock in the morning, I came to the margin of a river,
so wide that I could not see across it; but the fog was
so dense at this time that I could not have seen across
a river of very moderate width. I procured a long
pole, and sounded the depth of the water, which I
found not very deep; but as I could not see the opposite
shore, was afraid to attempt to ford the stream.

In this dilemma, I turned back from the river, and
went more than a mile to gain the covert of a small
wood, where I might pass the day in safety, and wait
a favorable moment for obtaining a view of the river,
preparatory to crossing it. I lay all day in full view
of the high road, and saw, at least, a hundred people
pass; from which I inferred, that the country was
populous about me. In the evening, as soon as it was
dark, I left my retreat, and returned to the river side.
The atmosphere was now clear, and the river seemed
to be at least a quarter of a mile in width; and whilst
I was divesting myself of my clothes, preparatory
to entering the water, happening to look down the shore
I saw a canoe, with its head drawn high on the beach.
On reaching the canoe, I found that it was secured to
the trunk of a tree by a lock and chain; but after
many efforts, I broke the lock and launched the canoe
into the river. The paddles had been removed, but
with the aid of my sounding-pole, I managed to conduct
the canoe across the water.

I was now once more in South Carolina, where I
knew it was necessary for me to be even more watchful
than I had been in Georgia. I do not know where I
crossed the Savannah river, but I think it must have
been only a few miles above the town of Augusta.

After gaining the Carolina shore, I took an observation
of the rising moon and of such stars as I was acquainted
with, and hastened to get away from the river,
from which I knew that heavy fogs rose every night,
at this season of the year, obscuring the heavens for
many miles on either side. I traveled this night at
least twenty miles, and provided myself with a supply
of corn, which was now hard, from a field at the side
of the road. At daybreak I turned into the woods,
and went to the top of a hill on my left, where the
ground was overgrown by the species of pine-tree
called spruce in the South. I here kindled a fire, and
parched corn for my breakfast.

In the afternoon of this day the weather became
cloudy, and before dark the rain fell copiously, and
continued through the night, with the wind high. I
took shelter under a large stooping tree that was
decayed and hollow on the lower side, and kept me dry
until morning. When daylight appeared, I could see
that the country around me was well inhabited, and
that the forest in which I lay was surrounded by
plantations, at the distance of one or two miles from me.
I did not consider this a safe position, and waited
anxiously for night, to enable me to change my quarters.
The weather was foul throughout the day; and
when night returned, it was so dark that I could not
see a large tree three feet before me. Waiting until
the moon rose, I made my way back to the road, but
had not proceeded more than two or three miles on my
way, when I came to a place where the road forked,
and the two roads led away almost at right angles
from each other. It was so cloudy that I could not
see the place of the moon in the heavens, and I knew
not which of these roads to take To go wrong was
worse than to stand still, and I therefore determined
to look out for some spot in which I could hide myself,
and remain in this neighborhood until the clearing up
of the weather. Taking the right hand road, I followed
its course until I saw at the distance, as I computed
it in the night, of two miles from me a large
forest which covered elevated ground. I gained it by
the shortest route across some cotton fields. Going
several hundred yards into this wood, I attempted to
kindle a fire, in which I failed, every combustible
substance being wet. This compelled me to pass the
night as well as I could amongst the damp bushes
and trees that overhung me. When day came, I went
farther into the woods, and on the top of the highest
ground that I could see, established my camp, by cutting
bushes with my knife, and erecting a sort of rude
booth.

It was now, by my computation, about the twenty-fifth
of August, and I remained here eleven days without
seeing one clear night; and in all this time the
sun never shone for half a day at once. I procured
my subsistence while here from a field of corn which
I discovered at the distance of a mile and a half from
my camp. This was the first time that I was weather-bound,
and my patience had been worn out and renewed
repeatedly before the return of the clear
weather; but one afternoon I perceived the trees to
be much agitated by the wind, the clouds appeared
high, and were driven with velocity over my head. I
saw the clear sky appear in all its beauty in the
northwest. Before sundown the wind was high, the sun
shone in full splendor, and a few fleecy clouds, careering
high in the upper vault of heaven, gave assurance
that the rains were over and gone.

At nightfall I returned to the forks of the road, and
after much observation, finally concluded to follow the
right hand road, in which I am satisfied that I committed
a great error. Nothing worthy of notice occurred
for several days after this. As I was now in a
thickly-peopled country, I never moved until long
after night, and was cautious never to permit daylight
to find me on the road; but I observed that the north-star
was always on my left hand. My object was to
reach the neighborhood of Columbia, and get upon the
road which I had traveled and seen years before in
coming to the South; but the road I was now on must
have been the great Charleston road, leading down the
country, and not across the courses of the rivers. So
many people traveled this road, as well by night as by
day, that my progress was very slow; and in some of
the nights I did not travel more than eight miles. At
the end of a week, after leaving the forks, I found myself
in a flat, sandy, poor country; and as I had not
met with any river on this road, I now concluded that
I was on the way to the sea-board instead of Columbia.
In my perplexity, I resolved to try to get information
concerning the country I was in, by placing
myself in some obscure place in the side of the road,
and listening to the conversation of travelers as they
passed me. For this purpose I chose the corner of a
cotton field, around which the road turned, and led
along the fence for some distance. Passing the day
in the woods among the pine-trees, I came to this corner
in the evening, and lying down within the field,
waited patiently the coming of travelers, that I might
hear their conversation, and endeavor to learn from
that which they said, the name at least of some place
in this neighborhood. On the first and second evenings
that I lay here, I gleaned nothing from the passengers
that I thought could be of service to me; but
on the third night, about ten o'clock, several wagons
drawn by mules passed me, and I heard one of the
drivers call to another and tell him that it was sixty
miles to Charleston; and that they should be able to
reach the river to-morrow. I could not at first imagine
what river this could be; but another of the wagoners
inquired how far it was to the Edisto, to which
it was replied by some one that it was near thirty
miles. I now perceived that I had mistaken my course,
and was as completely lost as a wild goose in cloudy
weather.

Not knowing what to do, I retraced the road that
had led me to this place for several nights, hoping
that something would happen from which I might
learn the route to Columbia; but I gained no information
that could avail me anything. At length I determined
to quit this road altogether, travel by the
north-star for two or three weeks, and after that to
trust to Providence to guide me to some road that
might lead me back to Maryland. Having turned my
face due North, I made my way pretty well for the
first night; but on the second, the fog was so dense
that no stars could be seen. This compelled me to
remain in my camp, which I had pitched in a swamp.
In this place I remained more than a week, waiting
for clear nights; but now the equinoctial storm came
on, and raged with a fury which I had never before
witnessed in this annual gale; at least it had never
before appeared so violent to me, because, perhaps, I
had never been exposed to its blasts, without the shelter
of a house of some kind. This storm continued
four days; and no wolf ever lay closer in his lair, or
moved out with more stealthy caution than I did
during this time. My subsistence was drawn from a
small corn-field at the edge of the swamp in which I lay.

After the storm was over, the weather became calm
and clear, and I fell into a road which appeared to run
nearly north-west. Following the course of this road
by short marches, because I was obliged to start late
at night and stop before day, I came on the first day,
or rather night, of October, by my calendar, to a broad
and well-frequented road that crossed mine at nearly
right angles. These roads crossed in the middle of
a plantation, and I took to the right hand along this
great road, and pursued it in the same cautious and
slow manner that I kind traveled for the last month.

When the day came I took refuge in the woods as
usual, choosing the highest piece of ground that I
could find in the neighborhood. No part of this country
was very high, but I thought people who visited
these woods, would be less inclined to walk to the tops
of the hills, than to keep their course along the low
grounds.

I had lately crossed many small streams; but on
the second night of my journey on this road, came to
a narrow but deep river, and after the most careful
search, no boat or craft of any kind could be found on
my side. A large flat, with two or three canoes, lay
on the opposite side, but they were as much out of
my reach as if they had never been made. There was
no alternative but swimming this stream, and I made
the transit in less than three minutes, carrying my
packages on my back.

I had as yet fallen in with no considerable towns,
and whenever I had seen a house near the road, or one
of the small hamlets of the South in my way, I had
gone round by the woods or fields, so as to avoid the
inhabitants; but on the fourth night after swimming
the small river, I came in sight of a considerable village,
with lights burning, and shining through many
of the windows. I knew the danger of passing a town,
on account of the patrols with which all southern
towns are provided, and making a long circuit to the
right, so as totally to avoid this village, I came to the
banks of a broad river, which, upon further examination,
I found flowing past the village, and near its
border. This compelled me to go back, and attempt
to turn the village on the left, which was performed
by wandering a long time in swamps and pine woods

It was break of day when I regained the road
beyond the village, and returning to the swamps from
which I had first issued, I passed the day under their
cover. On the following night, after regaining the
road, I soon found myself in a country almost entirely
clear of timber, and abounding in fields of cotton and
corn.

The houses were numerous, and the barking of dogs
was incessant. I felt that I was in the midst of dangers,
and that I was entering a region very different
from those tracts of country through which I had lately
passed, where the gloom of the wilderness was only
broken by solitary plantations or lonely huts. I had
no doubt that I was in the neighborhood of some town,
but of its name, and the part of the country in which
it was located, I was ignorant. I at length found that
I was receding from the woods altogether, and entering
a champaign country, in the midst of which I now
perceived a town of considerable magnitude, the
inhabitants which were entirely silent, and the town itself
presented the appearance of total solitude. The country
around was so open, that I despaired of turning so
large a place as this was, and again finding the road I
traveled, I therefore determined to risk all consequences,
and attempt to pass this town under cover of
darkness.

Keeping straight forward, I came unexpectedly to
a broad river, which I now saw running between me
and the town. I took it for granted that there must
be a ferry at this place, and on examining the shore,
found several small boats fastened only with ropes to
a large scow. One of these boats I seized, and was
quickly on the opposite shore of the river. I entered
the village and proceeded to its centre, without seeing
so much as a rat in motion. Finding myself in an
open space, I stopped to examine the streets, and upon
looking at the houses around me, I at once recognized
the jail of Columbia, and the tavern in which I had
lodged on the night after I was sold.

This discovery made me feel almost at home, with
my wife and children. I remembered the streets by
which I had come from the country to the jail, and
was quickly at the extremity of the town, marching
towards the residence of the paltry planter, at whose
house I had lodged on my way South. It was late at
night, when I left Columbia, and it was necessary for
me to make all speed, and get as far as possible from
that place before day. I ran rather than walked, until
the appearance of dawn, when I left the road and took
shelter in the pine woods, with which this part of the
country abounds.

I had now been traveling almost two months, and
was still so near the place from which I first departed
that I could easily have walked to it in a week, by
daylight; but I hoped, that as I was now on a road
with which I was acquainted, and in a country through
which I had traveled before, that my future progress
would be more rapid, and that I should be able to
surmount, without difficulty, many of the obstacles
that had hitherto embarrassed me so greatly.

It was now in my power to avail myself of the
knowledge I had formerly acquired of the customs of
South Carolina. The patrol are very rigid in the execution
of the authority with which they are invested; but I
never had much difficulty with these officers anywhere.
From dark until ten or eleven o'clock at night, the
patrol are watchful, and always traversing the country
in quest of negroes, but towards midnight these gentlemen
grow cold, or sleepy, or weary, and generally betake
themselves to some house, where they can procure
a comfortable fire.

I now established, as a rule of my future conduct,
to remain in my hiding place until after ten o'clock,
according to my computation of time; and this night
I did not come to the road until I supposed it to be
within an hour of midnight, and it was well for me
that I practiced so much caution, for when within two
or three hundred yards of the road, I heard people
conversing. After standing some minutes in the woods,
and listening to the voices at the road, the people
separated, and a party took each end of the road, and
galloped away upon their horses. These people were
certainly a band of patrollers, who were watching this
road, and had just separated to return home for the
night. After the horsemen were quite out of hearing,
I came to the road, and walked as fast as I could for
hours, and again came into the lane leading to the
house, where I had first remained a few days, in Carolina.
Turning away from the road I passed through
this plantation, near the old cotton-gin house in which
I had formerly lodged, and perceived that every thing
on this plantation was nearly as it was when I left it.
Two or three miles from this place I again left the
road, and sought a place of concealment, and from
this time until I reached Maryland, I never remained
in the road until daylight but once, and I paid dearly
then for my temerity.

I was now in an open, thickly-peopled country, in
comparison with many other tracts through which I
had passed; and this circumstance compelled me to
observe the greater caution. As nearly as possible, I
confined my traveling within the hours of midnight
and three o'clock in the morning. Parties of patrollers
were heard by me almost every morning before
day. These people sometimes moved directly along
the roads, but more frequently lay in wait near the
side of the road, ready to pounce upon any runaway
slave that might chance to pass; but I knew by former
experience that they never lay out all night, except in
times of apprehended danger; and the country appearing
at this time to be quiet, I felt but little apprehension
of falling in with these policemen, within my
traveling hours.

There was now plenty of corn in the fields, and
sweet potatoes had not yet been dug. There was no
scarcity of provisions with me, and my health was
good, and my strength unimpaired. For more than
two weeks I pursued the road that had led me from
Columbia, believing I was on my way to Camden. -
Many small streams crossed my way, but none of
them were large enough to oblige me to swim in crossing
them.

CHAPTER XVII.

ON the twenty-fourth of October, according to my
computation, in a dark night, I came to a river which
appeared to be both broad and deep. Sounding its
depth with a pole, I found it too deep to be forded,
and after the most careful search along the shore, no
boat could be discovered. This place appeared altogether
strange to me, and I began to fear that I was
again lost. Confident that I had never before been
where I now found myself, and ignorant of the other
side of the stream, I thought it best not to attempt to
cross this water until I was better informed of the
country through which it flowed. A thick wood bordered
the road on my left, and gave me shelter until
daylight. Ascending a tree at sunrise that overlooked
the stream, which appeared to be more than a mile in
width, I perceived on the opposite shore a house,
and one large and several small boats in the river. I
remained in this tree the greater part of the day, and saw
several persons cross the river, some of whom had
horses; but in the evening the boats were all taken
back to the place at which I had seen them in the
morning. The river was so broad that I felt some fear
of failing in the attempt to swim it; but seeing no
prospect of procuring a boat to transport me, I resolved
to attempt the navigation as soon as it was
dark. About nine o'clock at night, having equipped
myself in the best manner I was able, I undertook this
hazardous navigation, and succeeded in gaining the
farther shore of the river, in about an hour, with all
my things in safety. On the previous day I had noted
the bearing of the road, as it led from the river, and
in the middle of the night I again resumed my journey,
in a state of perplexity bordering upon desperation;
for it was now evident that this was not the
road by which we had traveled when we came to the
southern country, and on which hand to turn to reach
the right way I knew not.

After traveling five or six miles on this road, and
having the north-star in view all the time, I became
satisfied that my course lay northwest, and that I was
consequently going, out of my way; and to heighten
my anxiety, I had not tasted any animal food since I
crossed the Savannah river - a sensation of hunger
harassed me constantly; but fortune, which had been
so long adverse to me, and had led me so often astray,
had now a little favor in store for me. The leaves
were already fallen from some of the more tender trees,
anti near the road I this night perceived a persimmon
tree, well laden with fruit, and whilst gathering the
fallen persimmons under the tree, a noise over head
arrested my attention. This noise was caused by a
large opossum, which was on the tree gathering fruit
like myself. With a long stick the animal was brought
to the ground, and it proved to be very fat, weighing
at least ten pounds. With such a luxury as this in
my possession, I could not think of traveling far without
tasting it, and accordingly halted about a mile
from the persimmon tree, on a rising ground in a
thick wood, where I killed my opossum, and took off
its skin, a circumstance that I much regretted, for
with the skin I took at least a pound of fine fat.
Had I possessed the means of scalding my game, and
dressing it like a pig, it would have afforded me provision
for a week; but as it was, I made a large fire
and roasted my prize before it, losing all the oil that
ran out in the operation, for want of a dripping-pan
to catch it. It was daylight when my meat was ready
for the table, and a very sumptuous breakfast it yielded
me.

Since leaving Columbia, I had followed as nearly
as the course of the roads permitted, the index of the
north-star; which, I supposed, would lead me on the
most direct route to Maryland; but I now became
convinced, that this star was leading me away from
the line by which I had approached the cotton country.

I slept none this day, but passed the whole time,
from breakfast until night, in considering the means
of regaining my lost way. From the aspect of the
country I arrived at the conclusion, that I was not
near the sea-coast; for there were no swamps in all
this region; the land lay rather high and rolling, and
oak timber abounded.

At the return of night, I resumed my journey earlier
than usual; paying no regard to the roads, but keeping
the north-star on my left hand, as nearly as I could.
This night I killed a rabbit, which had leaped from the
bushes before me, by throwing my walking stick at it.
It was roasted at my stopping place in the morning,
and was very good.

I pursued the same course, keeping the north-star on
my left hand for three nights; intending to get as far
East as the road leading from Columbia to Richmond,
in Virginia; but as my line of march lay almost continually
in the woods, I made but little progress;
and on the third day, the weather became cloudy, so
that I could not see the stars. This again compelled
me to lie by, until the return of fair weather.

On the second day, after I had stopped this time,
the sun shone out bright in the morning, and continued
to shed a glorious light during the day; but in
the evening, the heavens became overcast with clouds;
and the night that followed was so dark, that I did
not attempt to travel. This state of the weather continued
more than a week; obliging me to remain stationary
all this time. These cloudy nights were succeeded
by a brisk wind from the north-west, accompanied
by fine clear nights, in which I made the best
of my way towards the north-east, pursuing my course
across the country without regard to roads, forests, or
streams of water; crossing many of the latter, none of
which were deep, but some of them were extremely
muddy. One night I became entangled in a thick
and deep swamp; the trees that grew in which, were
so tall, and stood so close together, that the interlocking
of their boughs, and the deep foliage in which they
were clad, prevented me from seeing the stars.
Wandering there for several hours, most of the time with
mud and water over my knees, and frequently wading
in stagnant pools, with deep slimy bottoms, I became
totally lost, and was incapable of seeing the least
appearance of fast land. At length, giving up all hope
of extricating myself from this abyss of mud, water,
brambles, and fallen timber, I scrambled on a large
tussock, and sat down to await the coming of day,
with the intention of going to the nearest high land,
as soon as the sun should be up. The nights were now
becoming cool, and though I did not see any frost in
the swamp where I was in the morning, I have no
doubt that hoar frost was seen in the dry and open
country. After daylight I found myself as much
perplexed as I was at midnight. No shore was to be
seen; and in every direction there was the same deep,
dreary, black solitude. To add to my misfortune, the
morning proved cloudy, and when the sun was up, I
could not tell the east from the west. After waiting
several hours for a sight of the sun, and failing to obtain
it, I set out in search of a running stream of water,
intending to strike off at right angles, with the course
of the current, and endeavor to reach the dry ground
by this means; but after wandering about, through
tangled bushes, briars, and vines, clambering over fallen
tree-tops, and wading through fens overgrown with
saw grass, for two or three hours, I sat down in despair
of finding any guide to conduct me from this detestable
place.

My bag of meal that I took with me at the
commencement of my journey was long since gone;
and the only provisions that I now possessed were a few
grains of parched corn, and near a pint of chestnuts
that I had picked up under a tree the day before I
entered the swamp. The chestnut-tree was full of
nuts, but I was afraid to throw sticks or to shake the
tree, lest hunters or other persons hearing the noise,
might be drawn to the place.

About ten o'clock I sat down under a large cypress
tree, upon a decaying log of the same timber; to make
my breakfast on a few grains of parched corn. Near
me was an open space without trees, but filled with
water that seemed to be deep, for no grass grew in it,
except a small quantity near the shore. The water
was on my left hand, and as I sat cracking my corn,
my attention was attracted by the playful gambols of
two squirrels that were running and chasing each other
on the boughs of some trees near me. Half pleased
with the joyous movements of the little animals, and
half covetous of their carcasses, to roast and devour
them, I paid no attention to a succession of sounds on
my left, which I thought proceeded from the movement
of frogs at the edge of the water, until the breaking
of a stick near me caused me to turn my head,
when I discovered that I had other neighbors than
spring frogs.

A monstrous alligator had left the water, and was
crawling over the mud, with his eyes fixed upon me.
He was now within fifteen feet of me, and in a moment
more, if he had not broken the stick with his weight,
I should have become his prey. He could easily have
knocked me down with a blow of his tail; and if his
jaws had once been closed on a leg or an arm, he would
have dragged me into the water, spite, of any resistance
that I could have made.

At the sight of him, I sprang to my feet, and running
to the other end of the fallen tree on which I sat,
and being there out of danger, had an opportunity of
viewing the motions of the alligator at leisure. Finding
me out of his reach, he raised his trunk from the
ground, elevated his snout, and gave a wistful look,
the import of which I well understood; then turning
slowly round, he retreated to the water, and sank from
my vision.

I was much alarmed by this adventure with the
alligator, for had I fallen in with this huge reptile in the
night time, I should have had no chance of escape
from his tusks.

The whole day was spent in the swamp, not in
traveling from place to place, but in waiting for the sun
to shine, to enable me to obtain a knowledge of the
various points of the heavens. The day was succeeded
by a night of unbroken darkness; and it was late in
the evening of the second day before I saw the sun.
It being then too late to attempt to extricate myself
from the swamp for that day, I was obliged to pass
another night in the lodge that I had formed for myself
in the thick boughs of a fallen cypress tree, which
elevated me several feet from the ground, where I
believed the alligator could not reach me if he should
come in pursuit of me.

On the morning of the third day the sun rose beautifully
clear, and at sight of him I set off for the East.
It must have been five miles from the place where I
lay to the dry land on the East of the swamp; for
with all the exertion that fear and hunger compelled
me to make, it was two or three o'clock in the afternoon
when I reached the shore, after swimming in
several places, and suffering the loss of a very valuable
part of my clothes, which were torn off by the briars
and snags. On coming to high ground I found myself
in the woods, and hungry as I was, lay down to await
the coming of night, lest some one should see me moving
through the forest in daylight.

When night came on, I resumed my journey by the
stars, which were visible, and marched several miles
before coming to a plantation. The first that I came
to was a cotton field; and after much search, I found
no corn nor grain of any kind on this place, and was
compelled to continue on my way.

Two or three miles further on I was more fortunate,
and found a field of corn which had been gathered from
the stalks and thrown in heaps along the ground. -
Filling my little bag, which I still kept, with this corn,
I retreated a mile or two in the woods, and striking
fire, encamped for the purpose of parching and eating
t. After despatching my meal, I lay down beside the
fire and fell into a sound sleep, from which I did not
awake until long, after sunrise; but on rising and looking
around me, I found that my lodge was within less
than a hundred yards of a new house that people were
building in the woods, and upon which men were now
at work. Dropping instantly to the ground, I crawled
away through the woods, until being out of sight of
the house, I ventured to rise and escape on my feet.
After I lay down in the night, my fire had died away
and emitted no smoke; this circumstance saved me.
This affair made me more cautious as to my future
conduct.

Hiding in the woods until night again came on, I
continued my course eastward, and some time after
midnight came upon a wide, well beaten road, one
end of which led, at this place, a little to the left of
the north-star, which I could plainly see. Here I
deliberated a long time, whether to take this road, or
continue my course across the country by the stars;
but at last resolved to follow the road, more from a
desire to get out of the woods, than from a conviction
that it would lead me in the right way. In the course
of this night I saw but few plantations, but was so
fortunate as to see a ground-hog crossing the road before
me. This animal I killed with my stick, and carried
it until morning.

At the approach of daylight, turning away to the
right, I gained the top of an eminence, from which I
could see through the woods for some distance around
me. Here I kindled a fire and roasted my groundhog,
which afforded me a most grateful repast, after
my late fasting and severe toils. According to custom
my meal being over, I betook myself to sleep, and did
not awake until the afternoon; when descending a
few rods down the hill, and standing still to take a survey
of the woods around me, I saw, at the distance of
half a mile from me, a man moving slowly about in
the forest, and apparently watching, like myself, to see
if any one was in view. Looking at this man attentively,
I saw that he was a black, and that he did not
move more than a few rods from the same spot where I
first saw him. Curiosity impelled me to know more
of the condition of my neighbor; and descending quite
to the foot of the hill, I perceived that he had a covert
of boughs of trees, under which I saw him pass, and
after some time return again from his retreat. Examining
the appearance of things carefully, I became
satisfied that tho stranger was, like myself, a negro
slave, and I determined, without more ceremony, to
go and speak to him, for I felt no fear of being betrayed
by one as badly off in the world as myself.

When this man first, saw me, at the distance of a
hundred yards from him, he manifested great agitation,
and at once seemed disposed to run from me;
but when I called to him, and told him not to be a
afraid, he became more assured, and waited for me to
come close to him. I found him to be a dark mulatto,
small and slender in person, and lame in one leg. He
had been well bred, and possessed good manners and
fine address. I told him I was traveling, and presumed
this was not his dwelling place: upon which
he informed me that he was a native of Kent county,
in the State of Delaware, and had been brought up as
a house-servant by his master, who, on his death-bed,
had made his will, and directed him to be set free by
his executors, at the age of twenty-five, and that in
the meantime he would be hired out as a servant to
some person who should treat him well. Soon after
the death of his master, the executors hired him to a
man in Wilmington, who employed him as a waiter in
his house for three or four months, and then took him
to a small town called Newport, and sold him to a
man who took him immediately to Baltimore, where
he was again sold or transferred to another man,
who brought him to South Carolina, and sold him to a
cotton planter, with whom he had lived more than two
years, and had run away three weeks before the time I
saw him, with the intention of returning to Delaware.

That being lame, and becoming fatigued by traveling,
he had stopped here and made this shelter of
boughs and bark of trees, under which he had remained
more than a week before I met him. He invited
me to go into his camp as he termed it, where he had
an old skillet, more than a bushel of potatoes, and
several fowls, all of which he said he had purloined
from the plantations in the neighborhood.

This encampment was in a level, open wood, and it
appeared surprising to me that its occupant had not
been discovered and conveyed back to his master before
this time. I told him that I thought he ran great
risk of being taken up by remaining here, and advised
him to break up his lodge immediately, and pursue his
journey, traveling only in the night time. He then
proposed to join me, and travel in company with me;
but this I declined, because of his lameness and great
want of discretion, though I did not assign these reasons
to him.

I remained with this man two or three hours, and
ate dinner of fowls dressed after his rude fashion. -
Before leaving him, I pressed upon him the necessity
of immediately quitting the position he then occupied,
but he said he intended to remain there a few days
longer, unless I would take him with me.

On quitting my new acquaintance, I thought it prudent
to change my place of abode for the residue of
this day, and removed along the top of the hill that I
occupied at least two miles, and concealed myself in a
thicket until night, when returning to the road I had
left in the morning, and traveling hard all night, I
came to a large stream of water just at the break of
day. As it was too late to pass the river with safety
this morning at this ford, I went half a mile higher,
and swam across the stream in open daylight, at a
place where both tides of the water were skirted with
woods. I had several large potatoes that had been
given to me by the man at his camp in the woods, and
these constituted my rations for this day.

At the rising and setting of the sun, I took the bearing
of the road by the course of the stream that I had
crossed, and found that I was traveling to the northwest,
instead of the north or northeast, to one of which
latter points I wished to direct my march.

Having perceived the country in which I now was
to be thickly peopled, I remained in my resting place
until late at night, when returning to the road and
crossing, it, I took once more to the woods, with the
stars for my guides, and steered for the northeast.

This was a fortunate night for me in all respects.
The atmosphere was clear, the ground was high, dry,
and free from thickets. In the course of the night I
passed several corn fields, with the corn still remaining
in them, and passed a potato lot, in which large
quantities of fine potatoes were dug out of the ground
and lay in heaps covered with vines; but my most
signal good luck occurred just before day, when passing
under a dog-wood tree, and hearing a noise in the
branches above me, I looked up and saw a large opossum
amongst the berries that hung, upon the boughs.
The game was quickly shaken down, and turned out
as fat as a well-fed pig, and as heavy as a full-grown
raccoon. My attention was now turned to searching
for a place in which I could secrete myself for the day,
and dress my provisions in quietness.

This day was clear and beautiful until the afternoon,
when the air became damp, and the heavens
were overhung with clouds. The night that followed
was dark as pitch, compelling me to remain in my
camp all night. The next clay brought with it a terrible
storm of rain and wind, that continued with but
little intermission, more than twenty-four hours, and
the sun was not again visible until the third day;
nor was there a clear night for more than a week.
During all this time I lay in my camp, and subsisted
upon the provisions that I had brought with me to
this place. The corn and potatoes looked so tempting,
when I saw them in the fields, that I had taken more
than I should have consumed, had not the bad weather
compelled me to remain at this spot; but it was well
for me, for this time, that I had taken more than I
could eat in one or two days.

At the end of the cloudy weather, I felt much refreshed
and strengthened, and resumed my journey in
high spirits, although I now began to feel the want
of shoes - those which I wore when I left my mistress
having long since been worn out, and my boots were
wrap straps of hickory bark about my feet to keep the
leather from separating, and falling to pieces.

It was now, by my computation, the month of
November, and I was yet in the State of South Carolina.
I began to consider with myself, whether I had gained
or lost, by attempting, to travel on the roads; and,
after revolving in my mind all the disasters that had
befallen me, determined to abandon the roads
altogether, for two reasons: the first of which was, that
on the highways I was constantly liable to meet persons,
or to be overtaken by them; and a second, no
less powerful, was, that as I did not know what roads
to pursue, I was oftener traveling on the wrong route
than on the right one.

Setting my face once more for the north-star, I
advanced with a steady, though slow pace, for four or
five nights, when I was again delayed by dark weather,
and forced to remain in idleness nearly two weeks;
and when the weather again became clear, I was arrested
on the second night by a broad and rapid river,
that appeared so formidable that I did not dare to
attempt its passage until after examining it in daylight.
On the succeeding night, however, I crossed it
by swimming - resting at some large rocks near the
middle. After gaining the north side of this river,
which I believed to be the Catawba, I considered myself
in North Carolina, and again steered towards the
North.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE month of November is, in all years, a season
of clouds and vapors; but at the time of which I
write, the good weather vanished early in the month,
and all the clouds of the universe seemed to have
collected in North Carolina. From the second night after
crossing the Catawba, I did not see the north-star for
the space of three weeks; and during all this time,
no progress was made in my journey; although I seldom
remained two days in the same place, but moved
from one position to another, for the purpose of eluding
the observation of the people of the country, whose
attention might have been attracted by the continual
appearance of the smoke of my fires in one
place.

There had, as yet, been no hard frost, and the leaves
were still on the oak trees, at the close of this cloudy
weather; but the northwest wind which dispelled the
mist, also brought down nearly all the leaves of the
forest, except those of the evergreen trees; and the
nights now became clear, and the air keen with frost.
Hitherto the oak woods had afforded me the safest
shelter, but I was obliged to seek for groves of
young pines to retire to at dawn. Heretofore I had
found a plentiful subsistence in every corn-field and
potato-lot, that fell in my way: but now began to
find some of the fields in which corn had grown, destitute
of the corn, and containing nothing but the
stalks. The potatoes had all been taken out of the
lots where they grew, except in some few instances
where they had been buried in the field; and the
means of subsistence became every day more difficult
to be obtained; but as I had fine weather, I made the
best use of those hours in which I dared to travel, and
was constantly moving from a short time after dark
until daylight. The toil that I underwent for the
first half of the month of December was excessive, and
my sufferings for want of food were great. I was
obliged to carry with me a stock of corn, sufficient to
supply me for two or three days, for it frequently happened
that I met with none in the fields for a long
time. In the course of this period I crossed innumerable
streams, the greater portion of which were of
small size, but some were of considerable magnitude;
and in all of them the water had become almost as
cold as ice. Sometimes I was fortunate enough to
find boats or canoes tied at the side of the streams, and
when this happened, I always made free use of that
which no one else was using at the time; but this did
not occur often, and I believe that in these two weeks
I swam over nine rivers, or streams, so deep that I
could not ford them. The number of creeks and rivulets
through which I waded was far greater, but I
cannot now fix the number.

In one of these fine nights, passing near the house
of a planter, I saw several dry hides hanging on poles
under a shed. One of these hides I appropriated to
myself, for the purpose of converting it into moccasins,
to supply the place of my boots, which were totally
worthless. By beating the dry hide with a stick it
was made sufficiently pliable to bear making it into
moccasins; of which I made for myself three pair,
wearing one, and carrying the others on my back.

One day as I lay in a pine thicket, several pigs
which appeared to be wild, having no marks on their
ears, came near me, and one of them approached so
close without seeing me, that I knocked it down with a
stone, and succeeded in killing it. This pig was very
fat, and would have weighed thirty if not forty pounds.
Feeling now greatly exhausted with the fatigues that
I had lately undergone, and being in a very great
forest, far removed from white inhabitants, I resolved
to remain a few days in this place, to regale myself
with the flesh of the pig, which I preserved by hanging
it up in the shade, after cutting it into pieces.
Fortune, so adverse to me heretofore, seemed to have
been more kind to me at this time, for the very night
succeeding the day on which I killed the pig, a storm
of hail, snow, and sleet, came on, and continued fifteen
or sixteen hours. The snow lay on the ground four
inches in depth, and the whole country was covered
with a crust almost hard enough to bear a man. In
this state of the weather I could not travel, and my
stock of pork was invaluable to me. The pork was
frozen where it hung on the branches of the trees, and
was as well preserved as if it had been buried in snow;
but on the fourth day after the snow fell, the atmosphere
underwent a great change. The wind blew
from the South, the snow melted away, the air became
warm, and the sun shone with the brightness,
and almost with the warmth of spring. It was manifest
that my pork, which was now soft and oily, would
not long be in a sound state. If I remained here, my
provisions would become putrid on my hands in a short
time, and compel me to quit my residence to avoid the
atmosphere of the place.

I resolved to pursue my journey, and prepared myself,
by roasting before the fire, all my pork that was
left, wrapping it up carefully in green pine leaves, and
enveloping the whole in a sort of close basket, that I
made of small boughs of trees. Equipping myself for
my journey with my meat in my knapsack, I again
took to the woods, with the stars for my guide, keeping
the north-star over my left eye.

The weather had now become exceedingly variable,
and I was seldom able to travel more than half of the
night. The fields were muddy, the low grounds in the
woods were wet, and often covered with water, through
which I was obliged to wade - the air was damp and
cold by day, the nights were frosty, very often covering
the water with ice an inch in thickness. From
the great degree of cold that prevailed, I inferred,
either that I was pretty far North, or that I had advanced
too much to the left, and was approaching the
mountain country.

To satisfy myself as far as possible of my situation,
one fair day, when the sky was very clear, I climbed
to the top of a pine tree that stood on the summit of
a hill, and took a wide survey of the region around me.
Eastward, I saw nothing but a vast continuation of
plantations, intervened by forests; on the South, the
faint beams of a winter sun shed a soft lustre over the
woods, which were dotted at remote distances, with
the habitations of men, and the openings that they
had made in the green champaign of the endless
pine-groves, that nature had planted in the direction of the
midday sun. On the North, at a great distance, I saw
a tract of low and flat country, which in my opinion
was the vale of some great river, and beyond this, at
the farthest stretch of vision, the eye was lost in the
blue transparent vault, where the extremity of the arch
of the world touches the abode of perpetual winter. -
Turning westward, the view passed beyond the region
of pine trees, which was followed afar off by naked
and leafless oaks, hickories, and walnuts; and still
beyond these rose high in air, elevated tracts of country,
clad in the white livery of snow, and bearing the
impress of mid-winter.

It was now apparent that I had borne too far westward,
and was within a few days' travel of the mountains.
Descending from my observations, I determined
on the return of night to shape my course, for the
future, nearly due East, until I should at least be out
of the mountains.

According to my calendar, it was the day before
Christmas that I ascended the pine-tree; and I believe
I was at that time in the north-western part of
North Carolina, not far from the banks of the Yadkin
river. On the following night I traveled from dark
until, as I supposed, about three or four o'clock in the
morning, when I came to a road which led as I thought
in an easterly direction. This road I traveled until
daylight, and encamped near it in an old field, overgrown
with young pines and holly-trees.

This was Christmas-day, and I celebrated it by
breakfasting on fat pork, without salt, and substituted
parched corn for bread. In the evening, the weather
became cloudy and cold, and when night came it was
so dark that I found difficulty in keeping in the road,
at some points where it made short angles. Before
midnight it began to snow, and at break of day the
snow lay more than a foot deep. This compelled me
to seek winter quarters; and fortunately, at about
half a mile from the road, I found, on the side of a
steep hill, a shelving rock that formed a dry covert,
with a southern prospect.

Under this rock I took refuge, and kindling a fire of
dry sticks, considered myself happy to possess a few
pounds of my roasted pork, and more than half a gallon
of corn that I carried in my pockets. The snow
continued falling, until it was full two feet deep around
me, and the danger of exposing myself to discovery by
my tracks in the snow, compelled me to keep close to
my hiding place until the third day, when I ventured
to go back to the road, which I found broken by the
passage of numerous wagons, sleds and horses, and so
much beaten that I could travel it with ease at night,
the snow affording good light.

Accordingly at night I again advanced on my way,
which indeed I was obliged to do, for my corn was
quite gone, and not more than a pound of my pork
remained to me. I traveled hard through the night,
and after the morning star rose, came to a river, which
I think must have been the Yadkin. It appeared to
be about two hundred yards wide, and the water ran
with great rapidity in it.

Waiting until the eastern horizon was tinged with
the first rays of the morning light, I entered the river
at the ford, and waded until the water was nearly
three feet deep, when it felt as if it was cutting the
flesh from the bones of my limbs, and a large cake of
ice floating downward, forced me off my balance, and
I was near falling. My courage failed me, and I returned
to the shore; but found the pain that already
tormented me greatly increased, when I was out of
the water, and exposed to the action of the open air.
Returning to the river, I plunged into the current to
relieve me from the pinching frost, that gnawed every
part of my skin that had become wet; and rushing
forward as fast as the weight of the water, that pressed
me downward, would permit, was soon up to my chin
in melted ice, when rising to the surface, I exerted my
utmost strength and skill to gain the opposite shore
by swimming in the shortest space of time. At every
stroke of my arms and legs, they were cut and bruised
by cakes of solid ice, or weighed down by floating
masses of congealed snow.

It is impossible for human life to be long sustained
in such an element as that which encompassed me;
and I had not been afloat five minutes before I felt
chilled in all my members, and in less than the double
of that time, my limbs felt numbed, and my hands
became stiff, and almost powerless.

When at the distance of thirty feet from the shore,
my body was struck by a violent current, produced by
a projecting rock above me, and driven with resistless
violence down the stream. Wholly unable to contend
with the fury of the waves, and penetrated by the
coldness of death, in my inmost vitals, I gave myself
up for lost, and was commending my soul to God,
whom I expected to be my immediate Judge, when I
perceived the long hanging branch of a large tree,
sweeping to and fro, and undulating backward and
forward, as its extremities were washed by the surging
current of the river, just below me. In a moment I
was in contact with the tree, and making the effort of
despair, seized one of its limbs. Bowed down by the
weight of my body, the branch yielded to the power
of the water, which rushing against my person, swept
me round like the quadrant of a circle, and dashed
me against the shore, where clinging to some roots
that grew near the bank, the limb of the tree left me,
and springing with elastic force to its former position,
again dipped its slender branches in the mad stream.

Crawling out of the water, and being once more on
dry land, I found my circumstances little less desperate
than when I was struggling with the floating ice. -
The morning was frosty, and icicles hung in long pendant
groups from the trees along the shore of the river
and the hoar frost glistened in sparkling radiance upon
the polished surface of the smooth snow, as it whitened
all the plain before me, and spread its chill but
beautiful covering through the woods.

There were three alternatives before me, one of
which I knew must quickly be adopted. The one was
to obtain a fire, by which I could dry and warm my
stiffened limbs; the second was to die, without the
fire; the third, to go to the first house, if I could
reach one, and surrender myself as a runaway slave.

Staggering, rather than walking forward, until I
gained the cover of a wood, at a short distance from
the river, I turned into it, and found that a field bordered
the wood within less than twenty rods of the
road. Within a few yards of this fence I stopped, and
taking out my fire apparatus, to my unspeakable joy
found them dry and in perfect safety. With the aid
of my punk, and some dry moss gathered from the
fence, a small flame was obtained, to which dry leaves
being added from the boughs of a white oak tree, that
had fallen before the frost of the last autumn had
commenced, I soon had fire of sufficient intensity to
consume dry wood, with which I supplied it, partly
from the fence and partly from the branches of the
fallen tree. Having raked away the snow from about
the fire, by the time the sun was up, my frozen clothes
were smoking before the coals - warming first one side
and then the other - I felt the glow of returning life
once more invigorating my blood, and giving animation
to my frozen limbs.

The public road was near me on one hand, and an
enclosed field was before me on the other, but in my
present condition it was impossible for me to leave
this place to-day, without danger of perishing in the
woods, or of being arrested on the road.

As evening came on, the air became much colder
than it was in the forenoon, and after night the wind
rose high and blew from the northwest, with intense
keenness. My limbs were yet stiff from the effects of
my morning adventure, and to complete my distress I
was totally without provisions, having left a few ears
of corn, that I had in my pocket, on the other side of
the river.

Leaving my fire in the night, and advancing into the
field near me, I discovered a house at some distance,
and as there was no light, or sign of fire about it, I
determined to reconnoitre the premises, which turned
out to be a small barn, standing alone, with no other
inhabitants about it than a few cattle and a flock of
sheep After much trouble, I succeeded in entering
the barn by starting he nails that confined one of the
boards at the corner. Entering the house I found it
nearly filled with corn, in the husks, and some from
which the husks had been removed, was lying in a
heap in one corner.

Into these husks I crawled, and covering myself
deeply under them, soon became warm, and fell into a
profound sleep, from which I was awakened by the
noise of people walking about in the barn and talking
of the cattle and sheep, which it appeared they had
come to feed, for they soon commenced working in the
corn husks with which I was covered, and throwing
them out to the cattle. I expected at every moment
that they would uncover me; but fortunately before
they saw me, they ceased their operations, and went to
work, some husking corn, and throwing the husks on
the pile over me, while others were employed in loading
the husked corn into carts, as I learned by their
conversation, and hauling it away to the house. The
people continued working in the barn all day, and in
the evening gave more husks to the cattle and went
home.

Waiting two or three hours after my visiters were
gone, I rose from the pile of husks, and filling my
pockets with ears of corn, issued from the barn at the
same place by which I had entered it, and returned to
the woods, where I kindled a fire in a pine thicket,
and parched more than half a gallon of corn. Before
day I returned to the barn, and again secreted myself
in the corn husks. In the morning the people again
returned to their work, and husked corn until the evening.
At night I again repaired to the woods, and
parched more corn. In this manner I passed more
than a month, lying in the barn all day, and going to
the woods at night; but at length the corn was all
husked, and I watched daily the progress that was
made in feeding the cattle with the husks, knowing
that I must quit my winter retreat before the husks
were exhausted. Before the husked corn was removed
from the barn, I had conveyed several bushels of the
ears into the husks, near my bed, and concealed them
for my winter's stock.

Whilst I lay in this barn there were frequent and
great changes of weather. The snow that covered the
earth to the depth of two feet when I came here, did
not remain more than ten days, and was succeeded by
more than a week of warm rainy weather, which was
in turn succeeded by several days of dry weather, with
cold high winds from the North. The month of February
was cloudy and damp, with several squalls of
snow and frequent rains. About the first of March,
the atmosphere became clear and dry, and the winds
boisterous from the West.

On the third of this month, having filled my little
bag and all my pockets with parched corn, I quitted
my winter quarters about ten o'clock at night, and
again proceeded on my way to the North, leaving a
large heap of corn husks still lying in the corner of
the barn.

On leaving this place, I again pursued the road that
had led me to it for several nights; crossing many
small streams in my way, all of which I was able to
pass without swimming, though several of them were
so deep that they wet me as high as my arm-pits. -
This road led nearly northeast, and was the only road
that I had fallen in with, since I left Georgia, that
had maintained that direction for so great a distance.
Nothing extraordinary befell me until the twelfth of
March, when venturing to turn out earlier than usual
in the evening, and proceeding along the road, I found
that my way led me down a hill, along the side of
which the road had been cut into tho earth ten or
twelve feet in depth, having steep banks on each side,
which were now so damp and slippery that it was impossible
for a man to ascend either the one or the other.

Whilst in this narrow place, I heard the sound of
horses proceeding up the hill to meet me. Stopping
to listen, in a moment almost two horsemen were close
before me, trotting up the road. To escape on either
hand was impossible, and to retreat backwards would
have exposed me to certain destruction. Only one
means of salvation was left, and I embraced it. Near
the place where I stood, was a deep gully cut in one
side of the road, by the water which had run down
here in time of rains. Into this gully I threw myself,
and lying down close to the ground, the horsemen rode
almost over me, and passed on. When they were gone
I arose, and descending the hill, found a river before me.

In crossing this stream I was compelled to swim
at least two hundred yards; and found the cold so
oppressive, after coming out of tho water, that I was
forced to stop at the first thick woods that I could find
and make a fire to dry myself. I did not move again
until the next night; and on the fourth night after
this, came to a great river, which I suppose was the
Roanoke. I was obliged to swim this stream, and
was carried a great way down by the rapidity of the
current. It must have been more than an hour from
the time that I entered the water, until I reached the
opposite shore, and as the rivers were yet very cold, I
suffered greatly at this place.

Judging by the aspect of the country, I believed
myself to be at this time in Virginia; and was now
reduced to the utmost extremity for want of provisions.
The corn that I had parched at the barn and brought
with me, was nearly exhausted, and no more was to be
obtained in the fields at this season of the year. For
three or four days I allowed myself only my two hands
full of parched corn per day; and after this I traveled
three days without tasting food of any kind; but being
nearly exhausted with hunger, I one night entered
an old stack-yard, hoping that I might fall in with
pigs, or poultry of some kind. I found, instead of
these, a stack of oats, which had not been threshed.
From this stack I took as much oats in the sheaf as I
could carry, and going on a few miles, stopped in a
pine forest, made a large fire, and parched at least
half a gallon of oats, after rubbing the grain from the
straw. After the grain was parched, I again rubbed
it in my hands, to separate it from the husks, and
spent the night in feasting on parched oats.

The weather was now becoming quite warm, though
the water was cold in the rivers; and I perceived the
farmers had everywhere ploughed their fields,
preparatory to planting corn. Every night I saw people
burning brush in the new grounds that they were
clearing of the wood and brush; and when the day
came, in the morning after I obtained the oats, I
perceived people planting corn in a field about half a
mile from my fire. According to my computation of
time, it was on the night of the last day of March
that I obtained the oats; and the appearance of the
country satisfied me that I had not lost many days in
my reckoning.

I lay in this pine-wood two days, for the purpose
of recruiting my strength, after my long fast; and
when I again resumed my journey, determined to
seek some large road leading towards the North, and
follow it in future; the one that I had been pursuing
of late, not appearing to be a principal high-way of
the country. For this purpose, striking off across the
fields, in an easterly direction, I traveled a few hours,
and was fortunate enough to come to a great road,
which was manifestly much traveled, leading towards
the northeast.

My bag was now replenished with more than a gallon
of parched oats, and I had yet one pair of moccasins
made of raw hide; but my shirt was totally gone,
and my last pair of trowsers was now in actual service.
A tolerable waistcoat still remained to me, and my
great coat, though full of honorable scars, was yet
capable of much service.

Having resolved to pursue the road I was now in, it
was necessary again to resort to tho utmost degree of
caution to prevent surprise. Traveling only after it
was dark, and taking care to stop before the appearance
of day, my progress was not rapid, but my safety
was preserved.

The acquisition of food had now become difficult,
and when my oats began to fail, I resorted to the dangerous
expedient of attacking the corn-crib of a planter
that was near the road. The house was built of
round logs, and was covered with boards. One of these
boards I succeeded in removing, on the side of the crib
opposite from the dwelling, and by thrusting my arm
downwards, was able to reach the corn - of which I
took as much as filled my bag, the pockets of my great
coat, and a large handkerchief that I had preserved
through all the vicissitudes of my journey. This opportune
supply of corn furnished me with food more
than a week, and before it was consumed I reached the
Appomattox river, which I crossed in a canoe that I
found tied at the shore, a few miles above the town of
Petersburg. Having approached Petersburg in the
night, I was afraid to attempt to pass through it, lest
the patrol should fall in with me; and turning to the
left through the country, reached the river, and crossed
in safety.

The great road leading to Richmond is so
distinguishingly marked above the other ways in this
part of Virginia, that there was no difficulty in following
it, and on the third night after passing Petersburg, I
obtained a sight of the capitol of Virginia. It was
only a little after midnight, when the city presented
itself to my sight; but here, as well as at Petersburg,
I was afraid to attempt to go through the town, under
cover of the darkness, because of the patrol. Turning,
therefore, back into a forest, about two miles from the
small town on the south-side of the river, I lay there
until after twelve o'clock in the day, when loosening
the package from my back, and taking it in my hand
in the form of a bundle, I advanced into the village,
as if I had only come from some plantation in the
neighborhood.

This was on Sunday, I believe, though according to
my computation it was Monday; but it must have
been Sunday, for the village was quiet, and in passing
it I only saw two or three persons, whom I passed as
if I had not seen them. No one spoke to me, and I
gained the bridge in safety, and crossed it without
attracting the least attention.

Entering the city of Richmond, I kept along the
principal street, walking at a slow pace, and turning
my head from side to side, as if much attracted by the
objects around me. Few persons were in the street,
and I was careful to appear more attentive to the
houses than to the people. At the upper end of the
city I saw a great crowd of ladies and gentlemen, who
were, I believe, returning from church. Whilst these
people were passing me, I stood in the street, on the
outside of the foot pavement with my face turned to
the opposite side of the street. They all went by without
taking any notice of me; and when they were gone,
I again resumed my leisure walk along the pavement,
and reached the utmost limit of the town without
being accosted by any one. As soon as I was clear of
the city I quickened my pace, assumed the air of a
man in great haste, sometimes actually ran, and in
less than an hour was safely lodged in the thickest
part of the woods that lay on the North of Richmond,
and full four miles from the river. This was the boldest
exploit that I had performed since leaving my
mistress, except the visit I paid to the gentleman in
Georgia.

My corn was now failing, but as I had once entered
a crib secretly, I felt but little apprehension on account
of future supplies. After this time I never wanted
corn, and did not again suffer by hunger, until I reached
the place of my nativity.

After leaving Richmond, I again kept along the
great road by which I had traveled on my way South,
taking great care not to expose my person unnecessarily.
For several nights I saw no white people on the way,
but was often met by black ones, whom I avoided by
turning out of the road; but one moonlight night,
five or six days after I left Richmond, a man stepped
out of the woods almost at my side, and accosting me
in a familiar manner, asked me which way I was traveling,
how long I had been on the road, and made many
inquiries concerning the course of my late journey.
This man was a mulatto, and carried a heavy cane, or
rather club, in his hand. I did not like his appearance,
and the idea of a familiar conversation with any
one seemed to terrify me. I determined to watch my
companion closely, and he appeared equally intent on
observing me; but at the same time that he talked
with me, he was constantly drawing closer to and following
behind me. This conduct increased my suspicion,
and I began to wish to get rid of him, but could
not at the moment imagine how I should effect my
purpose. To avoid him, I crossed the road several
times; but still he followed me closely. The moon,
which shone brightly upon our backs, cast his shadow
far before me, and enabled me to perceive his motions
with the utmost accuracy, without turning my head
towards him. He carried his club under his left arm,
and at length raised his right hand gently, took the
stick by the end, and drawing it slowly over his head
was in the very act of striking a blow at me, when
springing backward, and raising my own staff at the
same moment, I brought him to the ground by a stroke
on his forehead; and when I had him down, beat him
over the back and sides with my weapon, until he
roared for mercy, and begged me not to kill him. I
left him in no condition to pursue me, and hastened
on my way, resolved to get as far from him before day
as my legs would carry me.

This man was undoubtedly one of those wretches
who are employed by white men to kidnap and betray
such unfortunate people of color as may chance to fall
into their hands but for once the deceiver was deceived
and he who intended to make prey of me, had
well nigh fallen a sacrifice himself.

The same night I crossed the Pammunky river, near
the village of Hanover by swimming, and secreted myself
before day in a dense cedar thicket. The next
night, after I had traveled several miles, in ascending
a hill I saw the head of a man rise on the opposite
side, without having heard any noise. I instantly ran
into the woods, and concealed myself behind a large
tree. The traveler was on horseback, and the road
being sandy, and his horse moving only at a walk, I
had not heard his approach until I saw him. He also
saw me; for when he came opposite the place where
I stood, he stopped his horse in the road, and desired
me to tell him how far it was to some place, the name
of which I have forgotten. As I made no answer, he
again repeated the inquiry; and then said, I need not
be afraid to speak, as he did not wish to hurt me; but
no answer being given him, he at last said I might as
well speak, and rode on.

Before day I reached the Matapony river and
crossed it by wading; but knowing that I was not far
from Maryland, I fell into a great indiscretion, and forgot
the wariness and caution that had enabled me to
overcome obstacles apparently insurmountable. Anxious
to get forward, I neglected to conceal myself before
day; but traveled until daybreak before I sought a
place of concealment, and unfortunately, when I looked
for a hiding place, none was at hand. This compelled
me to keep on the road, until gray twilight, for the
purpose of reaching a wood that was in view before
me; but to gain this wood I was obliged to pass a
house that stood at the road side, and when only about
fifty yards beyond the house, a white man opened the
door, and seeing me in the road, called to me to stop.
As this order was not obeyed, he set his dog upon me.
The dog was quickly vanquished by my stick, and
setting off to run at full speed, I at the same moment
heard the report of a gun, and received its contents in
my legs, chiefly about, and in my hams. I fell on the
road, and was soon surrounded by several persons, who
it appeared were a party of patrollers, who had gathered
together in this house. They ordered me to cross
my hands, which order not being immediately obeyed,
they beat me with sticks and stones until I was almost
senseless, and entirely unable to make resistance. -
They then bound me with cords, and dragged me by
the feet back to the house, and threw me into the
kitchen, like a dead dog. One of my eyes was almost
beaten out, and the blood was running from my mouth,
nose and ears; but in this condition they refused to
wash the blood from my face, or even to give me a
drink of water.

In a short time a justice of the peace arrived, and
when he looked at me, ordered me to be unbound, and
to have water to wash myself, and also some bread to
eat. This man's heart appeared not to be altogether
void of sensibility, for he reprimanded in harsh terms
those who had beaten me; told them that their conduct
was brutal, and that it would have been more
humane to kill me outright, than to bruise and mangle
me in the manner they had done.

He then interrogated me as to my name, place of
abode, and place of destination, and afterwards
demanded the name of my master. To all these inquiries
I made no reply, except that I was going to Maryland,
where I lived. The justice told me it was his duty under
the law to send me to jail; and I was immediately
put into a cart, and carried to a small village
called Bowling Green, which I reached before
ten o'clock.

There, I was locked up in the jail, and a doctor
came to examine my legs, and extract the shot from
my wounds. In the course of the operation he took
out thirty-four buck shot, and after dressing my legs
left me to my own reflections. No fever followed in
the train of my disasters, which I attributed to the
reduced state of my blood, by long fasting, and the
fatigues I had undergone.

In the afternoon, the jailer came to see me, and
brought my daily allowance of provisions, and a jug of
water. The provisions consisted of more than a pound
of corn-bread and some boiled bacon. As my appetite
was good, I immediately devoured more than two-thirds
of this food, but reserved the rest for supper.

For several days I was not able to stand, and in this
period found great difficulty in performing the ordinary
offices of life for myself, no one coming to give
me any aid; but I did not suffer for want of food, the
daily allowance of the jailer being quite sufficient to
appease the cravings of hunger. After I grew better,
and was able to walk in the jail, the jailer frequently
called to see me, and endeavored to prevail on me to
tell where I came from; but in this undertaking he
was no more successful than the justice had been in
the same business.

I remained in the jail more than a month, and in
this time became quite fat and strong, but saw no way
by which I could escape. The jail was of brick, the
doors were of solid oak boards, and the door, of the
same material, was secured by iron bolts, let into its
posts, and connected together by a strong band of
iron, reaching from the one to the other.

Every thing appeared sound and strong, and to add
to my security, my feet were chained together, from
the time my wounds were healed. This chain I acquired
the knowledge of removing from my feet, by
working out of its socket a small iron pin that secured
the bolt that held the chain round one of my legs.

The jailer came to see me with great regularity,
every morning and evening, but remained only a few
minutes when he came, leaving me entirely alone at
all other times.

When I had been in prison thirty-nine days, and
had quite recovered from the wounds that I had received,
the jailor was late in coming to me with my
breakfast, and going to the door I began to beat
against it with my fist, for the purpose of making a
noise. After beating some time against the door I
happened, by mere accident, to strike my fist against
one of the posts, which, to my surprise, I discovered by
its sound, to be a mere hollow shell, encrusted with a
thin coat of sound timber, and as I struck it, the rotten
wood crumbled to pieces within. On a more careful
examination of this post, I became satisfied that I
could easily split it to pieces, by the aid of the iron
bolt that confined my feet. The jailor came with my
breakfast, and reprimanded me for making a noise.
This day appeared as long to me, as a week had done
heretofore; but night came at length, and as soon as
the room in which I was confined; had become quite
dark, I disentangled myself from the irons with which
I was bound, and with the aid of the long bolt, easily
wrenched from its place the large staple that held one
end of the bar, that lay across the door. The hasps
that held the lock in its place, were drawn away almost
without force, and the door swung open of its own
weight.

I now walked out into the jail-yard, and found that
all was quiet, and that only a few lights were burning,
in the village windows. At first I walked slowly along
the road, but soon quickened my pace, and ran along
the high-way, until I was more than a mile from the
jail, then taking to the woods, I traveled all night, in
a northern direction. At the approach of day I concealed
myself in a cedar thicket, where I lay until the
next evening, without any thing to eat.

On the second night after my escape, I crossed the
Potomac, at Hoe's ferry, in a small boat that I found
tied at the side of the ferry flat; and on the night
following crossed the Patuxent, in a canoe, which I
found chained at the shore.

About one o'clock in the morning, I came to the
door of my wife's cabin, and stood there, I believe,
more than five minutes, before I could summon sufficient
fortitude to knock. I at length rapped lightly on
the door, and was immediately asked, in the well-known
voice of my wife, “Who is there?” - I replied
“Charles.’ She then came to the door, and opening
it slowly, said, “Who is this that speaks so much like
my husband?” I then rushed into the cabin and made
myself known to her, but it was some time before I
could convince her, that I was really her husband, returned
from Georgia. The children were then called
up, but they had forgotten me.

When I attempted to take them in my arms, they
fled from me, and took refuge under the bed of their
mother. My eldest boy, who was four years old when
I was carried away, still retained some recollections of
once having had a father, but could not believe that
I was that father. My wife, who at first was overcome
by astonishment at seeing me again in her cabin,
and was incapable of giving credit to the fidelity of
her own vision, after I had been in the house a few
minutes, seemed to awake from a dream; and gathering
all three of her children in her arms, thrust
them into my lap, as I sat in the corner, clapped her
hands, laughed, and cried by turns; and in her ecstasy
forgot to give me any supper, until I at length told
her that I was hungry. Before I entered the house
I felt as if I could eat anything in the shape of food;
but now that I attempted to eat, my appetite had fled,
and I sat up all night with my wife and children.

When on my journey I thought of nothing but
getting home, and never reflected, that when at home,
I might still be in danger; but now that my toils
were ended, I began to consider with myself how I
could appear in safety in Calvert county, where everybody
must know that I was a runaway slave. With
my heart thrilling with joy, when I looked upon my
wife and children, who had not hoped ever to behold
me again; yet fearful of the coming of daylight, which
must expose me to be arrested as a fugitive slave, I
passed the night between the happiness of the present
and the dread of the future. In all the toils, dangers, and
sufferings of my long journey, my courage had
never forsaken me. The hope of again seeing my wife
and little ones, had borne me triumphantly through
perils, that even now I reflect upon as upon some
extravagant dream; but when I found myself at rest
under the roof of my wife, the object of my labors
attained, and no motive to arouse my energies, or give
them the least impulse, that firmness of resolution
which had so long sustained me, suddenly vanished
from my bosom; and I passed the night, with my
children around me, oppressed by a melancholy
foreboding of my future destiny. The idea that I was
utterly unable to afford protection and safeguard to
my own family, and was myself even more helpless
than they, tormented my bosom with alternate throbs
of affection and fear, until the dawn broke in the East,
and summoned me to decide upon my future conduct.

In the morning I went to the great house and showed
myself to my master and mistress. They gave me
a good breakfast, and advised me at first to conceal
myself, but afterwards to work in the neighborhood
for wages. For eight years, I lived in this region of
country and experienced a variety of fortune. At last
I had saved near $400, and bought near Baltimore
twelve acres of land, a yoke of oxen, and two cows, and
attended the Baltimore market. I had the great misfortune
to lose my wife. I married in two years, and
of my second wife had four children. Ten years of
happiness and comparative ease I enjoyed on my little
farm, and I had settled down into contentment, little
fearing any more trouble. But a bad fate was before
me.

CHAPTER XIX.

IN the month of June, 18-, as I was ploughing in
my lot, three gentlemen rode up to my fence, and
alighting from their horses, all came over the fence
and approached me, when one of them told me he
was the sheriff, and had a writ in his pocket, which
commanded him to take me to Baltimore. I was not
conscious of having done any thing injurious to any
one; but yet felt a distrust of these men, who were
all strangers to me. I told them I would go with
them, if they would permit me to turn my oxen loose
from the plough; but it was my intention to seek an
opportunity of escaping to the house of a gentleman,
who lived about a mile from me. This purpose I was
not able to effect, for whilst I was taking the yoke
from the oxen, one of the gentlemen came behind me,
and knocked me down with a heavy whip, that he
carried in his hand.

When I recovered from the stunning effects of this
blow, I found myself bound with my hands behind
me, and strong cords closely wrapped about my arms.
In this condition I was forced to set out immediately,
for Baltimore, without speaking to my wife, or even
entering my door. I expected that, on arriving at
Baltimore, I should be taken before a judge for the
purpose of being tried, but in this I was deceived.
They led me to the city jail, and there shut me up,
with several other black people, both men and women,
who told me that they had lately been purchased by
a trader from Georgia.

I now saw the extent of my misfortune, but could
not learn who the persons were, who had seized me.
In the evening, however, one of the gentlemen, who
had brought me from home, came into the jail with
the jailer, and asked me if I knew him. On being
answered in the negative, he told me that he knew me
very well; and asked me if I did not recollect the time
when he and his brother had whipped me, before my
master's door, in Georgia.

I now recognized the features of the younger of the
two brothers of my mistress; but this man was so
changed in his appearance, from the time when I
had last seen him, that if he had not declared himself, I
should never have known him. When I left Georgia,
he was not more than twenty-one or two years of age,
and had black, bushy hair. His hair was now thin
and gray, and all his features were changed.

After lying in jail a little more than two weeks,
strongly ironed, my fellow prisoners and I were one
day chained together, handcuffed in pairs, and in this
way driven about ten miles out of Baltimore, where
we remained all night.

On the evening of the second day, we halted at
Bladensburg.

On the next morning, we marched through
Washington, and as we passed in front of the President's
house, I saw an old gentleman walking in the grounds,
near the gate. This gentleman was the President
of the United States.

Within four weeks after we left Washington, I was
in Milledgeville in Georgia, near which the man who
had kidnapped me resided. He took me home with
him, and set me to work on his plantation; but I had
now enjoyed liberty too long to submit quietly to the
endurance of slavery. I had no sooner come here, than
I began to devise ways of escaping again from the
hands of my tyrants, and of making my way to the
northern States.

The month of August was now approaching, which
is a favorable season of the year to travel, on account
of the abundance of food that is to be found in the
corn-fields and orchards; but I remembered the dreadful
sufferings that I had endured in my former journey
from the South, and determined, if possible, to devise
some scheme of getting away, that would not subject
me to such hardships.

After several weeks of consideration, I resolved to
run away, go to some of the seaports, and endeavor to
get a passage on board a vessel, bound to a northern
city. With this view, I assumed the appearance of
resignation and composure, under the new aspect of
my fortune; and even went so far as to tell my new
master that I lived more comfortably with him, in his
cotton fields, than I had formerly done, on my own
small farm in Maryland; though I believe my master
did me the justice to give no credit to my assertions
on this subject.

From the moment I discovered in Maryland, that
I had fallen into the hands of the brother of my former
mistress, I gave up all hope of contesting his right
to arrest me, with success, at law, as I supposed he
had come with authority to reclaim me as the property
of his sister; but after I had returned to Georgia,
and had been at work some weeks on the plantation
of my new master, I learned that he now claimed me
as his own slave, and that he had reported he had
purchased me in Baltimore. It was now clear to me
that this man, having by some means learned the
place of my residence, in Maryland, had kidnapped
and now held me as his slave, without the color of
legal right; but complaint on my part was useless,
and resistance vain.

I was again reduced to the condition of a common
field slave, on a cotton plantation in Georgia, and
compelled to subsist on the very scanty and coarse
food allowed to the southern slave. I had been absent
from Georgia almost twenty years, and in that period
great changes had doubtlessly taken place in the face
of the country, as well as in the condition of human
society.

I had never been in Milledgeville until I was brought
there by the man who had kidnapped me in Maryland,
and I was now a slave among entire strangers, and had
no friend to give me the consolation of kind words,
such as I had formerly received from my master in
Morgan county. The plantation on which I was now
a slave, had formerly belonged to the father of my
mistress; and some of my fellow slaves had been well
acquainted with her in her youth. From these people
I learned, that after the death of my master, and my
flight from Georgia, my mistress had become the wife
of a second husband, who had removed with her to
the State of Louisiana more than fifteen years ago.

After ascertaining these facts, which proved
beyond all doubt that my present master had no right
whatsoever to me, in either law or justice, I determined
that before encountering the dangers and sufferings
that must necessarily attend my second flight from
Georgia, I would attempt to proclaim the protection
of the laws of the country, and try to get myself
discharged from tho unjust slavery in which I was
now held. For this purpose, I went to Milledgeville,
one Sunday, and inquired for a lawyer of a black man
whom I met in the street; This person told me that
his master was a lawyer, and went with me to his house.

The lawyer, after talking to me some time, told me
that my master was his client, and that he therefore
could not undertake my cause; but referred me to a
young gentleman, who he said would do my business
for me. Accordingly to this young man I went, and
after relating my whole story to him, he told me that
he believed he could not do any thing for me, as I had
no witnesses to prove my freedom.

I rejoined, that it seemed hard that I must be
compelled to prove myself a freeman: and that it would
appear more consonant to reason that my master should
prove me to be a slave. He, however, assured me that
this was not the law of Georgia, where every man of
color was presumed to be a slave until he could prove
that he was free. He then told me that if I expected
him to talk to me, I must give him a fee; whereupon
I gave him all the money I had been able to procure,
since my arrival in the country, which was two dollars
and seventy-five cents.

When I offered him this money, the lawyer tossed
his head, and said such a trifle was not worth accepting
but nevertheless he took it, and then asked me
if I could get some more money before the next
Sunday. That if I could get another dollar, he would
issue a writ and have me brought before the court;
but if he succeeded in getting me set free, I must
engage to serve him a year. To these conditions I
agreed, and signed a paper which the lawyer wrote
and which was signed by two persons as witnesses.

The brother of my pretended master was yet living
in this neighborhood, and the lawyer advised me to
have him brought forward, as a witness, to prove that
I was not the slave of my present pretended owner.

On the Wednesday following my visit to Milledgeville,
the sheriff came to my master's plantation, and
took me from the field to the house, telling me as I
walked beside him that he had a writ which commanded
him to take me to Milledgeville. Instead, however,
of obeying the command of his writ, when he arrived
at the house he took a bond of my master that he
would produce me at the court-house on the next day,
Friday, and then rode away, leaving me at the mercy
of my kidnapper.

Since I had been on this plantation, I had never
been whipped, although all the other slaves, of whom
there were more than fifty, were frequently flogged
without any apparent cause. I had all along attributed
my exemption from the lash to the fears of my
master. He knew I had formerly run away from his
sister, on account of her cruelty, and his own savage
conduct to me; and I believed that he was still apprehensive
that a repetition of his former barbarity might
produce the same effect that it had done twenty years
before.

His evil passions were like fire covered with ashes,
concealed, not extinguished. He now found that I was
determined to try to regain my liberty at all events,
and the sheriff was no sooner gone than the overseer
was sent for, to come from the field, and I was tied up
and whipped, with the long lashed negro whip, until
I fainted, and was carried in a state of insensibility to
my lodgings in the quarter. It was night when I recovered
my understanding sufficiently to be aware of
my true situation. I now found that my wounds had
been oiled, and that I was wrapped in a piece of clean
linen cloth; but for several days I was unable to leave
my bed. When Friday came, I was not taken to Milledgeville,
and afterwards learned that my master reported
to the court that I had been taken ill, and was
not able to leave the house. The judge asked no
questions as to the cause of my illness.

At the end of two weeks I was taken to Milledgeville,
and carried before a judge, who first asked a few
questions of my master, as to the length of time that
he had owned me, and the place where he had purchased
me. He stated in my presence that he had
purchased me, with several others, at public auction,
in the city of Baltimore, and had paid five hundred
and ten dollars for me. I was not permitted to speak
to the court, much less to contradict this falsehood in
the manner it deserved.

The brother of my master was then called as a witness
by my lawyer, but the witness refused to be sworn
or examined, on account of his interest in me, as his
slave. In support of his refusal, he produced a bill of
sale from my master to himself, for an equal, undivided
half part of the slave - . This bill of sale was
dated several weeks previous to the time of trial, and
gave rise to an argument between the opposing lawyers
that continued until the court adjourned in the evening.

On the next morning I was again brought into court,
and the judge now delivered his opinion, which was
that the witness could not be compelled to give evidence
in a cause to which he was really, though not
nominally, a party.

The court then proceeded to give judgment in the
cause now before it, and declared that the law was well
settled in Georgia that every negro was presumed to
be a slave, until he proved his freedom by the clearest
evidence. That where a negro was found in the custody
or keeping of a white man, the law declared that
white man to be his master, without any evidence on
the subject. But the case before the court was
exceedingly plain and free from all doubt or difficulty.
Here the master has brought this slave into the State
of Georgia, as his property, has held him as a slave
ever since, and still holds him as a slave. The title
of the master in this case is the best title that a man
can have to any property; and the order of the court
is, that the slave - be returned to the custody
of his master.

I was immediately ordered to return home, and from
this time until I left the plantation my life was a continual
torment to me. The overseer often came up to
me in the field, and gave me several lashes with his
long whip over my naked back, through mere wantonness;
and I was often compelled, after I had done my
day's work in the field, to cut wood, or perform some
other labor at the house, until long after dark. My
sufferings were too great to be borne long by any human
creature; and to a man who had once tasted the sweets
of liberty, they were doubly tormenting.

There was nothing in the form of danger that could
intimidate me, if the road on which I had to encounter
it led me, to freedom. That season of the year most
favorable to my escape from bondage, had at length
arrived. The corn in the fields was so far grown as to
be fit for roasting; the peaches were beginning to
ripen, and the sweet potatoes were large enough to be
eaten; but notwithstanding all this, the difficulties
that surrounded me were greater than can easily be
imagined by any one who has never been a slave in
the lower country of Georgia.

In the first place I was almost naked, having no
other clothes than a ragged shirt of tow cloth, and a
pair of old trowsers of the same material, with an old
woollen jacket that I had brought with me from home.
In addition to this, I was closely watched every evening,
until I had finished the labor assigned me, and
then I was locked up in a small cabin by myself for
the night.

This cabin was really a prison, and had been built
for the purpose of confining such of the slaves of this
estate as were tried in the evening, and sentenced to
be whipped in the morning. It was built of strong
oak logs, hewn square, and dovetailed together at the
corners. It had no window in it; but as the logs did
not fit very close together, there was never any want
of air in this jail, in which I had been locked up every
night since my trial before the court.

On Sundays I was permitted to go to work in the
fields, with the other people who worked on that day,
if I chose so to do; but at this time I was put under
the charge of an old African negro, who was instructed
to give immediate information if I attempted to
leave the field. To escape on Sunday was impossible,
and there seemed to be no hope of getting out of my
sleeping room, the floor of which was made of strong
pine plank.

Fortune at length did for me that which I had not
been able to accomplish, by the greatest efforts, for
myself. The lock that was on the door of my nightly
prison was a large stock lock, and had been clumsily
fitted on the door, so that the end of the lock pressed
against the door-case, and made it difficult to shut the
door even in dry weather. When the weather was
damp, and the wood was swollen with moisture, it was
not easy to close the door at all.

Late in the month of September the weather became
cloudy, and much rain fell. The clouds continued to
obscure the heavens for four or five days. One evening,
when I was ordered to my house as it was called,
the overseer followed me without a light, although it
was very dark. When I was in the house, he pushed
the door after me with all his strength. The violence
of the effort caused the door to pass within the case at
the top, for one or two feet, and this held it so fast
that he could not again pull it open.

Supposing, in the extreme darkness, that the door
was shut, he turned the key; and the bolt of the lock
passing on the outside of the staple intended to receive
it, completely deceived him. He then withdrew the
key, and went away. Soon after he was gone, I went
to the door, and feeling with my hands, ascertained
that it was not shut. An opportunity now presented
itself for me to escape from my prison-house, with a
prospect of being able to be so far from my master's
residence before morning, that none could soon
overtake me, even should the course of my flight be
ascertained. Waiting quietly, until every one about the
quarter had ceased to be heard, I applied one of my
feet to the door, and giving it a strong push, forced
it open.

The world was now all before me, but the darkness
was so profound, as to obscure from my vision the
largest objects, even a house, at the distance of a few
yards. But dark as it was, necessity compelled me to
leave the plantation without delay, and knowing only
the great road that led to Milledgeville, amongst the
various roads of this country, I set off at a brisk walk
on this public highway, assured that no one could
apprehend me in so dark a night.

It was only about seven miles to Milledgeville, and
when I reached that town several lights were burning
in the windows of the houses; but keeping on directly
through the village, I neither saw nor heard any person
in it, and after gaining the open country, my first
care was to find some secure place where shelter could
be found for the next day; but no appearance of thick
woods was to be seen for several miles, and two or
three hours must have elapsed before a forest of sufficient
magnitude was found to answer my purposes.

It was perhaps three o'clock in the morning, when
I took refuge in a thick and dismal swamp that lay
on the right hand of the road, intending to remain
here until daylight, and then look out for a secret
place to conceal myself in, during the day. Hitherto,
although the night was so extremely dark, it had not
rained any, but soon after my halt in the swamp the
rain began to fall in floods, rather than in showers,
which made me as wet as if I had swam a river.

Daylight at length appeared, but brought with it
very little mitigation of my sufferings; for the swamp,
in which my hiding-place was, lay in the midst of a
well-peopled country, and was surrounded on all sides
by cotton and corn fields, so close to me that the open
spaces of the cleared land could be seen from my position.
It was dangerous to move, lest some one should
see me, and painful to remain without food when hunger
was consuming me.

My resting place in the swamp was within view of
the road; and, soon after sunrise, although it continued
to rain fast, numerous horsemen were seen passing
along the road by the way that had led me to the
swamp. There was little doubt on my mind that
these people were in search of me, and the sequel
proved that my surmises were well founded. It rained
throughout this day, and the fear of being apprehended
by those who came in pursuit of me, confined me to
the swamp, until after dark the following evening,
when I ventured to leave the thicket, and return to
the high road, the bearing of which it was impossible
for me to ascertain, on account of the dense clouds that
obscured the heavens. All that could be done in my
situation, was to take care not to follow that end of
the road which had led me to the swamp. Turning
my back once more upon Milledgeville, and walking
at a quick pace, every effort was made to remove myself
as far as possible this night from the scene of suffering,
for which that swamp will be always memorable
in my mind.

The rain had ceased to fall at the going down of the
sun; and the darkness of this second night was not so
great as that of the first had been. This circumstance
was regarded by me as a happy presage of the final
success that awaited my undertaking. Events proved
that I was no prophet; for the dim light of this night
was the cause of the sad misfortune that awaited me.

In a former part of this volume, the reader is made
acquainted with the deep interest that is taken by all
the planters, far and wide, around the plantation from
which a slave has escaped by running away. Twenty
years had wrought no change in favor of the fugitive;
nor had the feuds and dissentions that agitate and distract
the communities of white men, produced any relaxation
in the friendship that they profess to feel, and
really do feel, for each other, on a question of so much
importance to them all.

More than twenty miles of road had been left
behind me this night; and it must have been two or
three o'clock in the morning, when, as I was passing a
part of the road that led through a dense pine grove,
where the trees on either side grew close to the wheel
tracks, five or six men suddenly rushed upon me from
both sides of the road, and with loud cries of “Kill
him! kill him!” accompanied with oaths and opprobrious
language, seized me, dragged me to the ground,
and bound me fast with a long cord, which was wrapped
round my arms and body, so as to confine my
hands below my hips.

In this condition I was driven, or rather dragged,
about two miles to a kind of tavern or public house,
that stood by the side of the road; where my captors
were joined, soon after daylight, by at least twenty of
their companions, who had been out all night waiting
and watching for me on the other roads of this part of
the country. Those who had taken me were loudly
applauded by their fellows; and the whole party
passed the morning in drinking, singing songs, and
playing cards at this house. At breakfast time they
gave me a large cane of corn bread and some sour
milk for breakfast.

About ten o'clock in the morning my master
arrived at the tavern, in company with two or three other
gentlemen, all strangers to me. My master, when he
came into my presence, looked at me, and said, “Well,
- , you had bad luck in running away this time;”
and immediately asked aloud, what any person would
give for me. One man, who was slightly intoxicated,
said he would give four hundred dollars for me. Other
bids followed, until my price was soon up to five hundred
and eighty dollars, for which I was stricken off,
by my master himself, to a gentleman, who immediately
gave his note for me, and took charge of me as
his property.

CHAPTER XX.

THE name of my new master was Jones, a planter,
who was only a visiter in this part of the country; his
residence being about fifty miles down the country.
The next day, my new master set off with me to the
place of his residence; permitting me to walk behind
him, as he rode on horseback, and leaving me entirely
unshackled. I was resolved, that as my owner treated
me with so much liberality, the trust he reposed in me
should not be broken until after we had reached his
home; though the determination of again running
away, and attempting to escape from Georgia, never
abandoned me for a moment.

The country through which we passed, on our journey,
was not rich. The soil was sandy, light, and, in
many places, much exhausted by excessive tillage.
The timber, in the woods where the ground was high,
was almost exclusively pine; but many swamps, and
extensive tracts of low ground intervened, in which
maple, gum, and all the other trees common to such
land in the South, abounded.

No improvement in the condition of the slaves on
the plantations, was here perceptible; but it appeared
to me, that there was now even a greater want of
good clothes, amongst the slaves on the various
plantations that we passed, than had existed twenty
years before. Everywhere, the overseers still kept up the
same custom of walking in the fields with the long
whip, that has been elsewhere described; and everywhere
the slaves proved, by the husky appearance of
their skins, and the dry, sunburnt aspect of their hair,
that they were strangers to animal food.

On the second day of our journey, in the evening,
we arrived at the residence of my master, about eighty
miles from Savannah. The plantation, which had now
become the place of my residence, was not large,
containing only about three hundred acres of cleared
land, and having on it about thirty working slaves of all
classes.

It was now the very midst of the season of picking
cotton, and, at the end of twenty years from the time
of my first flight, I again had a daily task assigned
me, with the promise of half a cent a pound for all the
cotton I should pick, beyond my day's work. Picking
cotton, like every other occupation requiring active
manipulation, depends more upon sleight than strength,
and I was not now able to pick so much in a day as
was once able to do.

My master seemed to be a man ardently bent on the
acquisition of wealth, and came into the field, where
we were at work, almost every day; frequently remonstrating,
in strong language, with the overseer, because
he did not got more work done.

Our rations, on this place, were a half peck of corn
per week; in addition to which, we had rather more
than a peck of sweet potatoes allowed to each person.
Our provisions were distributed to us on every Sunday
morning by the overseer; but my master was generally
present, either to see that justice was done to us,
or that injustice was not done to himself.

When I had been here about a week, my master
came into the field one day, and, in passing near me,
stopped and told me that I had now fallen into good
hands, as it was his practice not to whip his people
much. That he, in truth, never whipped them, nor
suffered his overseer to whip them, except in flagrant
cases. That he had discovered a mode of punishment
much more mild, and, at the same time, much more
effectual than flogging; and that he governed his
negroes exclusively under this mode of discipline. He
then told me, that when I came home in the evening
I must come to the house; and that he would then
make me acquainted with the principles upon which
he chastised his slaves.

Going to the house in the evening, according to
orders, my master showed me a pump, set in a well in
which the water rose within ten feet of the surface of
the ground. The spout of this pump was elevated at
least thirteen feet above the earth, and when the water
was to be drawn from it, the person who worked the
handle ascended by a ladder to the proper station. -
The water in this well, although so near the surface,
was very cold; and the pump discharged it in a large
stream. One of the women employed in the house,
had committed some offence for which she was to be
punished; and the opportunity was embraced of exhibiting
to me the effect of this novel mode of torture
upon the human frame. The woman was stripped
quite naked, and tied to a post that stood just under
the stream of water, as it fell from the spout of the
pump. A lad was then ordered to ascend the ladder,
and pump water upon the head and shoulders of the
victim; who had not been under the waterfall more
than a minute, before she began to cry and scream in
a most lamentable manner. In a short time, she exerted
her strength, in the most convulsive throes, in
trying to escape from the post; but as the cords were
strong, this was impossible. After another minute or
a little more, her cries became weaker, and soon
afterwards her head fell forward upon her breast; and then
the boy was ordered to cease pumping the water. The
woman was removed in a state of insensibility; but
recovered her faculties in about an hour. The next
morning she complained of lightness of head, but was
able to go to work.

This punishment of the pump, as it is called, was
never inflicted on me; and I am only able to describe
it, as it has been described to me, by those who have
endured it.

When the water first strikes the head and arms, it
is not at all painful; but in a very short time, it produces
the sensation that is felt when heavy blows are
inflicted with large rods, of the size of a man's finger.
This perception becomes more and more painful, until
the skull bone and shoulder blades appear to be broken
in pieces. Finally, all the faculties become oppressed;
breathing becomes more and more difficult; until the
eye-sight becomes dim, and animation ceases. This
punishment is in fact a temporary murder; as all the
pains are endured, that can be felt by a person who is
deprived of life by being beaten with bludgeon; but
after the punishment of the pump, the sufferer is
restored to existence by being laid in a bed, and
covered with warm clothes. A giddiness of the head,
and oppression of the breast, follows this operation, for
a day or two, and sometimes longer. The object of
calling me to be a witness of this new mode of torture,
doubtlessly, was to intimidate me from running away; but
like medicines administered by empirics, the spectacle
had precisely the opposite effect, from that which it
was expected to produce.

After my arrival on this estate, my intention had
been to defer my elopement until the next year, before
I had seen the torture indicted on this unfortunate
woman; but from that moment my resolution was
unalterably fixed, to escape as quickly as possible.
Such was my desperation of feeling, at this time, that
I deliberated seriously upon the project of endeavoring
to make my way southward, for the purpose of joining
the Indians in Florida. Fortune reserved a more
agreeable fate for me.

On the Saturday night after the woman was punished
at the pump, I stole a yard of cotton bagging from
the cotton-gin house, and converted it into a bag, by
means of a coarse needle and thread that I borrowed
of one of the black women. On the next morning,
when our weekly rations were distributed to us, my
portion was carefully placed in my bag, under pretence
of fears that it would be stolen from me, if it was left
open in the loft of the kitchen that I lodged in.

This day being Sunday, I did not go to the field to
work as usual, on that day, but under presence of being
unwell, remained in the kitchen all day, to be better
prepared for the toils of the following night After
daylight had totally disappeared, taking my bag under
my arm, under pretence of going to the mill to grind
my corn, I stole softly across the cotton fields to the
nearest woods, and taking an observation of the stars,
directed my course to the eastward, resolved that in
no event should anything induce me to travel a single
yard on the high road, until at least one hundred miles
from this plantation.

Keeping on steadily through the whole of this night,
and meeting with no swamps, or briery thickets in my
way, I have no doubt that before daylight the plantation
was more than thirty miles behind me.

Twenty years before this I had been in Savannah,
and noted at that time that great numbers of ships
were in that port, taking in and loading cotton. My
plan was now to reach Savannah, in the best way I
could, by some means to be devised after my arrival
in the city, to procure a passage to some of the northern
cities.

When day appeared before me, I was in a large cotton
field, and before the woods could be reached, it
was gray dawn; but the forest bordering on the field
was large, and afforded me good shelter through the
day, under the cover of a large thicket of swamp laurel
that lay at the distance of a quarter of a mile from
the field. It now became necessary to kindle a fire,
for all my stock of provisions, consisting of corn and
potatoes, was raw and undressed. Less fortunate now
than in my former flight, no fire apparatus was in my
possession, and driven at last to the extremity, I
determined to endeavor to produce fire by rubbing
two sticks together, and spent at least two hours of
incessant toil, in this vain operation, without the least
prospect of success. Abandoning this project at length,
I turned my thoughts to searching for a stone of some
kind, with which to endeavor to extract fire from an
old jack-knife, that had been my companion in Maryland
for more than three years. My labors were fruitless.
No stone could be found in this swamp, and the day was
passed in anxiety and hunger; a few raw potatoes
being my only food.

Night at length came, and with it a renewal of my
traveling labors. Avoiding with the utmost care, every
appearance of a road, and pursuing my way until daylight,
I must have traveled at least thirty miles this
night. Awhile before day, in crossing a field, I fortunately
came upon a bed of large pebbles, on the side
of a hill. Several of these were deposited in my bag,
which enabled me when day arrived to procure fire,
with which I parched corn and roasted potatoes sufficient
to subsist me for two or three days. On the
fourth night of my journey, fortune directed me to a
broad, open highway, that appeared to be much
traveled.

Near the side of this road I established my quarters
for the day in a thick pine wood, for the purpose of
making observations upon the people who traveled it,
and of judging thence of the part of the country to
which it led.

Soon after daylight a wagon passed along drawn by
oxen, and loaded with bales of cotton; then followed
some white men on horseback, and soon after sunrise a
whole train of wagons and carts, all loaded with bales of
cotton, passed by, following the wagon first seen by
me. In the course of the day, at least one hundred
wagons and carts passed along this road towards the
south-east, all laden with cotton bales; and at least
an equal number came towards the west, either laden
with casks of various dimensions, or entirely empty.
Numerous horsemen, many carriages, and great numbers
of persons on foot, also passed to and fro on this
road in the course of the day.

All these indications satisfied me that I must be
near some large town, the seat of an extensive cotton
market. The next consideration with me was to know
how far it was to this town, for which purpose I determined
to travel on the road the succeeding night.

Lying in the woods until about eleven o'clock, I
rose came to the road and traveled it until within an
hour of daylight, at which time the country around
me appeared almost wholly clear of timber; and
houses became much more numerous than they had
been in the former part of my journey.

Things continued to wear this aspect until daylight,
when I stopped, and sat down by the side of a high
fence that stood beside the road. After remaining
here a short time, a wagon laden with cotton passed
along, drawn by oxen, whose driver, a black man,
asked me if I was going towards town. Being answered
in the affirmative, he then asked me if I did
not wish to ride in his wagon. I told him I had been
out of town all night, and should be very thankful to
him for a ride; at the same time ascending his wagon
and placing myself in a secure and easy position on
the bags of cotton.

In this manner we traveled on for about two hours,
when we entered the town of Savannah. In my situation
there was no danger of anyone suspecting me to
be a runaway slave; for no runaway had ever been
known to flee from the country and seek refuge in
Savannah.

The man who drove the wagon passed through several
of the principal streets of the city, and stopped his
team before a large warehouse, standing on a wharf,
looking into the river. Here I assisted my new friend
to unload his cotton, and when we were done he invited
me to share his breakfast with him, consisting of
corn bread, roasted potatoes, and some cold boiled rice.

Whilst we were at our breakfast, a black man came
along the street, and asked us if we knew where he
could hire a hand, to help him to work a day or two
I at once replied that my master had sent me to town
to hire myself out for a few weeks, and that I was
ready to go with him immediately. The joy I felt at
finding employment so overcame me, that all thought
of my wages was forgotten. Bidding farewell to the
man who had given me my breakfast, and thanking
him in my heart for his kindness, I followed my new
employer, who informed me that he had engaged to
remove a thousand bales of cotton from a large warehouse,
to the end of a wharf at which a ship lay, that
was taking in the cotton as a load.

This man was a slave, but hired his time of his master
at two hundred and fifty dollars a year, which he
aid he paid in monthly instalments. He did what he
called job work, which consisted of undertaking jobs,
and hiring men to work under him, if the job was too
great to be performed by himself. In the present instance
he had seven or eight black men, beside me, all
hired to help him to remove the cotton in wheel-barrows,
and lay it near the end of the wharf, when it
was taken up by sailors and carried on board the ship
that was receiving it.

We continued working hard all day; and amongst
the crew of the ship was a black man, with whom I
resolved to become acquainted by some means.
Accordingly at night after we had quit our work, I went
to the end of the wharf against which the ship lay
moored, and stood there a long time, waiting for the
black sailor to make his appearance on deck. At length
my desires were gratified. He came upon the deck,
and sat down near the main-mast, with a pipe in his
mouth, which he was smoking with great apparent
pleasure. After a few minutes, I spoke to him, for he
had not yet seen me as it appeared, and when he heard
my voice, rose up and came to the side of the ship
near where I stood. We entered into conversation together,
in the course of which he informed me that his
home was in New-York; that he had a wife and several
children there, but that he followed the sea for a
livelihood, and knew no other mode of life. He also
asked me where my master lived, and if Georgia had
always been the place of my residence.

I deemed this a favorable opportunity of effecting
the object I had in view, in seeking the acquaintance
of this man, and told him at once that by law and
justice I was a free man, but had been kidnapped near
Baltimore, forcibly brought to Georgia, and sold there
as a slave. That I was now a fugitive from my master,
and in search of some means of getting back to
my wife and children.

The man seemed moved by the account of my
sufferings, and at the close of my narrative, told me he
could not receive me on board the ship, as the captain
had given positive orders to him, not to let any of the
negroes of Savannah come on board, lest they should
steal something belonging to the ship. He further
told me that he was on watch, and should continue
on deck two hours. That he was forced to take a turn
of watching the ship every night, for two hours; but
that his turn would not come the next night until after
midnight.

I now begged him to enable me to secrete myself
on board the ship, previous to the time of her sailing,
so that I might be conveyed to Philadelphia, whither
the ship was bound with her load of cotton. He at
first received my application with great coldness, and
said he would not do any thing contrary to the orders
of the captain; but before we parted, he said he
should be glad to assist me if he could, but that the
execution of the plan proposed by me, would be attended
with great dangers, if not ruin.

In my situation there was nothing too hazardous
for me to undertake, and I informed him that if he
would let me hide myself in the hold of the ship,
amongst the bags of cotton, no one should ever know
that he had any knowledge of the fact; and that all
the danger, and all the disasters that might attend the
affair, should fall exclusively on me. He finally told
me to go away, and that he would think of the matter
until the next day.

It was obvious that his heart was softened in my
favor; that his feelings of compassion almost impelled
him to do an act in my behalf, that was forbidden by
his judgment, and his sense of duty to his employers.
As the houses of the city were now closed, and I was
a stranger in the place, I went to a wagon that stood
in front of the warehouse, and had been unladen of
the cotton that had been brought in it, and creeping
into it, made my bed with the driver, who permitted
me to share his lodgings amongst some corn tops that
he had brought to feed his oxen.

When the morning came, I went again to the ship,
and when the people came on deck, asked them or
the captain, whom I should not have known by his
dress, which was very nearly similar to that of the
sailors. On being asked if he did not wish to hire a
hand, to help load his ship, he told me I might go
to work amongst the men, if I chose, and he would
pay me what I was worth.

My object was to procure employment on board the
ship, and not to get wages; and in the course of this
day I found means to enter the hold of the ship several
times, and examine it minutely. The black sailor
promised that he would not betray me, and that if I
could find the means of escaping on board the ship he
would not disclose it.

At the end of three days, the ship had taken in her
loading, and the captain said in my presence that he
intended to sail the day after. No time was now to
be lost, and asking the captain what he thought I had
earned, he gave me three dollars, which was certainly
very liberal pay, considering that during the whole
time that I had worked for him my fare had been the
same as that of the sailors, who had as much as they
could consume of excellent food.

The sailors were now busy in trimming the ship and
making ready for sea, and observing that this work
required them to spend much time in the hold of the
ship, I went to the captain and told him, that as he
had paid me good wages and treated me well, I would
work with his people the residue of this day, for my
victuals and half a gallon of molasses; which he said
he would give me. My first object now, was to get
into the hold of the ship with those who were adjusting
the cargo. The first time the men below called
for aid, I went to them, and being there, took care to
remain with them. Being placed at one side of the
hold, for the purposes of packing the bags close to the
ship's timbers, I so managed as to leave a space
between two of the bags, large enough for a man to
creep in and conceal himself. This cavity was near
the opening in the centre of the hold, that was left to
let men down, to stow away the last of the bags
that were put in. In this small hollow retreat among
the bags of cotton, I determined to take my passage
to Philadelphia, if by any means I could succeed in
stealing on board the ship at night.

When the evening came, I went to a store near the
wharf, and bought two jugs, one that held half a gallon,
and the other, a large stone jug, holding more
than three gallons. When it was dark I filled my
large jug with water; purchased twenty pounds of
pilot bread at a bakery, which I tied in a large
handkerchief; and taking my jugs in my hand, went on
board the ship to receive my molasses of the captain,
for the labor of the day. The captain was not on
board, and a boy gave me the molasses; but, under
pretence of waiting to see the captain, I sat down
between two rows of cotton bales that were stowed on
deck. The night was very dark, and, watching a
favorable opportunity, when the man on deck had
gone forward, I succeeded in placing both my jugs
upon the bags of cotton that rose in the hold, almost to
the deck. In another moment I glided down amongst
the cargo, and lost no time in placing my jugs in the
place provided for them, amongst the bales of cotton,
beside the lair provided for myself.

Soon after I had taken my station for the voyage,
the captain came on board, and the boy reported to
him that he had paid me off, and dismissed me. In a
short time, all was quiet on board the ship, except the
occasional tread of the man on watch. I slept none
at all this night; the anxiety that oppressed me preventing
me from taking any repose.

Before day the captain was on deck, and gave orders
to the seamen to clear the ship for sailing, and to be
ready to descend the river with the ebb tide, which
was expected to flow at sunrise. I felt the motion of
the ship when she got under weigh, and thought the
time long before I heard the breakers of the ocean
surging against her sides.

In the place where I lay, when the hatches were
closed, total darkness prevailed; and I had no idea
of the lapse of time, or the progress we made, until
having at one period crept out into the open space,
between the rows of cotton bags, which I have before
described, I heard a man, who appeared from the
sound of his voice to be standing on the hatch, call
out and say, “This is Cape Hatteras.” I had already
come out of my covert several times into the open
space; but the hatches were closed so tightly, as to
exclude all light. It appeared to me that we had already
been at sea a long time; but as darkness was
unbroken with me, I could not make any computation
of periods.

Soon after this, the hatch was opened, and light
was let into the hold. A man descended for the purpose
of examining the state of the cargo; who returned
in a short time. The hatch was again closed, and
nothing of moment occurred from this time, until I
heard and felt the ship strike against some solid body.
In a short time I heard much noise, and a multitude
of sounds of various kinds. All this satisfied me that
the ship was in some port; for I no longer heard the
sound of the waves, nor perceived the least motion in
the ship.

At length the hatch was again opened, and the
light was let in upon me. My anxiety now was, to
escape from the ship, without being discovered by any
one; to accomplish which I determined to issue from
the hold as soon as night came on, if possible. Waiting,
until sometime after daylight had disappeared, I
ventured to creep to the hatchway, and raise my head
above deck. Seeing no one on board, I crawled out
of the hold, and stepped on board a ship that lay alongside
of that in which I had come a passenger. Here a
man seized me, and called me a thief, saying I had
come to rob his ship; and it was with much difficulty
that I prevailed upon him to let me go. He at length
permitted me to go on the wharf; and I once more
felt myself a freeman.

I did not know what city I was in; but as the
sailors had all told me, at Savannah, that their ship
was bound to Philadelphia, I had no doubt of being
in that city. In going along the street, a black man
met me, and I asked him if I was in Philadelphia. -
This question caused the stranger to laugh loudly;
and he passed on without giving me any answer. Soon
afterwards I met an old gentleman, with drab clothes
on, as I could see by the light of the lamps. To him
I propounded the same question, that had been
addressed a few moments before to the black man. This
time, however, I received a civil answer, being told
that I was in Philadelphia.

This gentleman seemed concerned for me, either
because of my wretched and ragged appearance, or
because I was a stranger, and did not know where I
was. Whether for one cause or the other, I knew not;
but he told me to follow him, and led me to the house
of a black man, not far off, whom he directed to take
care of me until the morning. In this house I was
kindly entertained all night, and when the morning
came, the old gentleman in drab clothes returned, and
brought with him an entire suit of clothes, not more
than half worn, of which he made me a present, and
gave me money to buy a hat and some muslin for a
couple of shirts. He then turned to go away, and said,
“I perceive that thee is a slave, and has run away
from thy master. Thee can now go to work for thy
living; but take care that they do not catch thee
again.” I then told him, that I had been a slave,
and had twice run away and escaped from the State
of Georgia. The gentleman seemed a little incredulous
of that which I told him; but when I explained to
him the cause of the condition in which he found me,
he seemed to become more than ever interested in my
fate. This gentleman, whose name I shall not publish,
has always been a kind friend to me.

After remaining in Philadelphia a few weeks, I resolved
to return to my little farm in Maryland, for the
purpose of selling my property for as much as it would
produce, and of bringing my wife and children to
Pennsylvania.

On arriving in Baltimore, I went to a tavern keeper,
whom I had formerly supplied with vegetables
from my garden. This man appeared greatly surprised
to see me; and asked me how I had managed to
escape from my master in Georgia. I told him, that
the man who had taken me to Georgia was not my
master; but had kidnapped me, and carried me away
by violence. The tavern keeper then told me, that
I had better leave Baltimore as soon as possible, and
showed me a hand-bill that was stuck up against the
wall of his bar-room, in which a hundred and fifty
dollars reward was offered for my apprehension. I
immediately left this house, and fled from Baltimore
that very night.

When I reached my former residence, I found a
white man living in it, whom I did not know. This
man, on being questioned by me, as to the time he
had owned this place, and the manner in which he had
obtained possession, informed me, that a black man
had formerly lived here; but he was a runaway slave,
and his master had come; the summer before, and
carried him off. That the wife of the former owner of
the house was also a slave; and that her master had
come about six weeks before the present time, and
taken her and her children, and sold them in Baltimore
to a slave-dealer from the South.

This man also informed me, that he was not in
this neighborhood at the time the woman and her
children were carried away; but that he had received
his information from a black woman, who lived half a
mile off.

This black woman I was well acquainted with; she
had been my neighbor, and I knew her to be my friend.
She had been set free, some years before by a gentleman
of this neighborhood, and resided under his protection,
on a part of his land. I immediately went to
the house of this woman, who could scarcely believe
the evidence of her own eyes, when she saw me enter
her door. The first words she spoke to me were, “Lucy
and her children have all been stolen away.” At my
request, she gave me the following account of the manner
in which my wife and children, all of whom had
been free from their birth, were seized and driven into
southern slavery.

“A few weeks,” said she, “after they took you
away, and before Lucy had so far recovered from the
terror produced by that event, as to remain in her
house all night with her children, without some other
company, I went one evening to stay all night with
her; a kindness that I always rendered her, if no other
person came to remain with her.

“It was late when we went to bed, perhaps eleven
o'clock; and after we had been asleep some time, we
were awakened by a loud rap at the door. At first
we said nothing; but upon the rap being several times
repeated, Lucy asked who was there. She was then
told, in a voice that seemed by its sound to be that of
a woman, to get up and open the door; adding, that
the person without had something to tell her that she
wished to hear. Lucy, Supposing the voice to be that
of a black woman, the slave of a lady living near, rose
and opened the door; but, to our astonishment, instead
of a woman coming in, four or five men rushed
into the house and immediately closed the door; at
which one of the men stood, with his back against it,
until the others made a light in the fire-place, and
proceeded deliberately to tie Lucy with a rope. -
Search was then made in the bed for the children;
and I was found and dragged out. This seemed to
produce some consternation among the captors, whose
faces were all black, but whose hair and visages were
those of white men. A consultation was held among
them, the object of which was to determine whether I
should also be taken along with Lucy and the children,
or be left behind, on account of the interest which my
master was supposed to feel for me.

“It was finally agreed, that as it would be very
dangerous to carry me off, lest my old master should
cause pursuit to be made after them, they would leave
me behind, and take only Lucy and the children.
One of the number then said it would not do to leave
me behind, and at liberty, as I would immediately go
and give intelligence of what I had seen; and if the
affair should be discovered by the members of the
abolition society, before they had time to get out of
Maryland, they would certainly be detected and punished
for the crimes they were committing.

“It was finally resolved to tie me with cords, to one
of the logs of the house, gag me by tying a rope in my
mouth, and confining it closely to the back of my neck.
They immediately confined me, and then took the
children from the bed. The oldest boy they tied to
his mother, and compelled them to go out of the house
together. The three youngest children were then
taken out of bed, and carried off in the hands of the
men who had tied me to the log. I never saw nor
heard any more of Lucy or her children.

“For myself, I remained in the house, the door of
which was carefully closed and fastened after it was
shut, until the second night after my confinement,
without anything to eat or drink. On the second
night some unknown persons came and cut the cords
that bound me, when I returned to my own cabin.”

This intelligence almost deprived me of life; it was
the most dreadful of all the misfortunes that I had
ever suffered. It was now clear that some slave-dealer
had come in my absence and seized my wife and children
as slaves, and sold them to such men as I had
served in the South. They had now passed into hopeless
bondage, and were gone forever beyond my reach.
I myself was advertised as a fugitive slave, and was
liable to be arrested at each moment, and dragged
back to Georgia. I rushed out of my own house in
despair and returned to Pennsylvania with a broken
heart.

For the last few years, I have resided about fifty
miles from Philadelphia, where I expect to pass the
evening of my life, in working hard for my subsistence,
without the least hope of ever again seeing, my wife
and children: - fearful, at this day, to let my place of
residence be known, lest even yet it may be supposed,
that as an article of property, I am of sufficient value
to be worth pursuing in my old age.